The remains of a woman found dead on a reservation in southwestern South Dakota in January has been identified as Michelle Elbow Shield, a Sioux woman who went missing more than a year ago.
Elbow Shield’s body was discovered on the state’s Pine Ridge Reservation in January, according to the forensics laboratory that helped solve her case and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Sioux woman from Pine Ridge went missing in September 2023 and the BIA created a profile for Elbow Shield in the wake of her disappearance.
Her image appeared on a section of the federal website dedicated to missing and murdered Indigenous people, which says Elbow Shield was last seen in Rapid City, about 100 miles from the reservation.
Investigators with the Rapid City Police Department recovered a woman’s remains in January but she could not be immediately identified, forensics lab Othram, Inc. said in a news release. Rapid City police partnered with the BIA’s missing and murdered unit to determine whether advanced DNA testing, which Othram performs to assist law enforcement agencies around the U.S. with unsolved cases, would lead somewhere.
The lab said its scientists were able to locate a potential relative of Elbow Shield using an analysis technique called forensic-grade genome sequencing, where DNA profiles are built out from a sample of crime scene evidence. A direct DNA sample later provided by the relative allowed investigators to confirm the biological match and confirm Elbow Shield’s identity, according to Othram.
An investigation into Elbow Shield’s disappearance and death is ongoing.
“Thousands of hours have been invested into the investigation into Michelle’s disappearance, and we hope this recent news can offer some sense of closure for her loved ones,” Rapid City Police Chief Don Hedrick said after her identity was confirmed, CBS News affiliate KELO-TV reported.
“We remain committed to fully investigating the circumstances surrounding her disappearance through collaboration with the involved public safety agencies in order to uphold justice in the case,” the police chief said. “The recent break in this investigation came thanks to information shared by the public, and we intend to use all available combined resources in order to bring this case to a resolution.”
The frequency with which Indigenous women are missing or murdered is a crisis in the U.S., where Native American women are disproportionately targeted in murders, sexual assaults and other acts of violence, both on reservations and in nearby towns.
There were more than 5,700 reports of missing Native women and girls in 2016, according to the anti-sexual assault organization RAINN, which cites statistics from the National Crime Information Center. The BIA estimated more recently that roughly 4,200 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people remain unsolved.
Emily Mae Czachor is a news editor at CBSNews.com. She typically covers breaking news, extreme weather and issues involving social and criminal justice. Emily Mae previously wrote for outlets like the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
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