Nancy Guthrie: When an Abduction Triggers a Nation—and When It Doesn’t Like Ashley Heavy Runner

Time to get a bit uncomfortable about a truth we’ve avoided for far too long. For years, Native communities have raised the alarm about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis. Thousands of Native American women have been abducted, disappeared, or killed. And yet, we have never seen the level of resources now being deployed in the abduction of Nancy Guthrie.

Same country, Same Crime, VERY different Response
Is it wrong to ask for the same urgency?

When Mollie Tibbetts went missing while jogging in Iowa, the nation was immediately alerted. Wall-to-wall television coverage followed. Daily press conferences were held. People Magazine ran features. A $170,000 reward was offered. Tens of millions of search results flooded the internet. Every development—no matter how small—was treated as urgent and worthy of national attention. This was how a society responds when a young woman disappears.

Ashley Heavy Runner, a Native American woman from Montana, also went missing—pregnant and under violent circumstances. There were no daily national briefings. No saturation coverage. No massive reward. No national mobilization of law enforcement resources. Her family searched while navigating jurisdictional barriers that routinely stall Native cases. Outside of Native communities, most Americans never heard her name.

Now, as more than 100 Pima County personnel and the FBI are deployed in the abduction of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the contrast becomes impossible to ignore. This is not a criticism of a thorough response—it is recognition that this level of urgency is treated as exceptional rather than standard when the missing woman is Native. When one disappearance mobilizes the full weight of media and law enforcement while another barely registers, the issue is not coincidence or capacity. It is systemic.

Please read the articles at the links below:
Kozee Decorah's MURDER by Boyfriend
Savanna's Act addresses the issue
MISSING/MURDERED
White Women in Jep  Gets all the media. 
Nooksack Stalking of Native Woman  is how it starts
FOX NEWS leads with MISSING WHITE WOMAN  NEWS CONFERENCE

It is absolutely appropriate that every available resource is being deployed to find a kidnapped woman. No family should ever be left without help. What we are witnessing in Pima County—federal involvement, coordinated agencies, nonstop updates—is what a serious response to an abduction looks like.

The question is not why these resources are being used here.
The question is why this level of response is so rarely—if ever—used when the missing woman is Native.

Native American women go missing at disproportionate rates. Many cases receive no federal task force, no 100-person deployment, no sustained media pressure. Families often conduct searches themselves while jurisdictional confusion delays action. When one demographic reliably receives full mobilization and another does not, that is not coincidence. It is a disparity rooted in visibility, power, and race—even when no individual actor intends harm.

And yes, this is a media accountability issue. Fox News. ABC. NBC. CBS. CNN. Local and national outlets alike. Silence is not neutrality.

Native families are not asking for less attention for anyone else. We are asking for the same urgency, coordination, and respect when our daughters, mothers, and grandmothers are taken.
Is that really too much to ask?