'We need our voices heard': Over 100 people attend day honoring missing and murdered NM Indigenous people

May 5—At about 3:45 a.m. Aug. 1, 2021, Geraldine Toya was sleeping at her Jemez Pueblo home when she got the phone call any parent dreads.

Toya said an Albuquerque police officer told her that her daughter, Shawna Toya, 40, was dead.

Geraldine said Shawna was found unresponsive in a vehicle at an Albuquerque park the night before. APD tried to resuscitate her, but were unsuccessful. The news came only a few hours after mother and daughter had gone bowling with other family members at Main Event.

"I couldn't believe it," Geraldine told the Journal. "I just didn't want to believe it."

Shawna left behind four children — now 4, 6, 10 and 18 years old — who Geraldine has since helped raise with her husband, Benjamin.

"It's been very hard," she said.

Toya was one of over 100 people to attend Sunday's missing and murdered Indigenous people awareness event at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. The event was put on by the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women and the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department.

It was part of a nationwide awareness day.

'We need our voices heard'

Toya and her family held a sign that said "Justice for Shawna Toya" during a prayer walk around the cultural center.

As they walked, people chanted, "What do we want now?"

"Justice!"

"We need our voices heard," Toya told the Journal. "We need to be the voice of (those who are missing or dead). We're their only voice."

The walk was for people "to reflect and to gather and to just honor and remember our lost and stolen relatives," said Lincoln Encino, Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women membership and outreach coordinator.

"It's a time to walk in solidarity," he said.

'Want to help others'

For CSVANW land and body violence coordinator Deiandra Reid, Sunday was a day to tell families that they are not alone in their search for answers about their missing or murdered loved ones.

"I think it's really important to know that there are some available resources out there for people," she told the Journal, "to know there are people who know what they are going through and there are people who want to help others."

Reid said she wants to help others because she understands what they are going through.

On May 17, it will be 20 years since Reid's sister, Tiffany Reid, who was 17 then, went missing.

"It's been 20 years of silence, 20 years of nothing," Deiandra told the crowd inside a packed cultural center conference room.

"I think a lot of what families want is accountability," Reid said. "It's almost been 20 years and I was never told "We were sorry we made a mistake, or whatever, to acknowledge me and validate our efforts and our feelings."

Reid said her sister had been out of the National Crime Information Center database for 17 years. It wasn't until 2021, she said when the U.S. Marshals Service created another missing case file and got her put back into the system.

Moving forward, Reid said she would like to see better communication between law enforcement agencies, but added she did not "want to place the blame on law enforcement."

"I just want solutions," she said.

As do other people like Denise Carrillo, whose sister Kristina Carrillo has been missing since September 2022 when she was last seen at Flower Water Casino in Shiprock, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Carrillo told media outlets after the event that her family heard a rumor that Kristina had been killed and thrown into a well. Carrillo said she has searched for her herself. This included "digging into trenches to look at bone fragments to see if it was my sister."

'We're not going to give up'

Another person hoping to find answers is Anita King, whose 27-year-old daughter, Pepita M. Redhair (Navajo) has been missing since 2020.

King said she has spoken to four Albuquerque police detectives about her daughter, who King said was last seen with her boyfriend.

"As a family, we're very frustrated," she said at the press conference Sunday. "We want APD detectives to know we're struggling."

Despite the frustrations, people like King, Carrillo and Toya said they are not giving up and will continue to fight for their loved while supporting one another.

"I know it's hard, but we're not going to give up," Toya said. "I'm here for all of you guys. You're my people."