Watch The True Crime Arizona Documentary: The Forgotten

An Arizona’s Family Original
Native women in Arizona are disappearing at staggering rates, yet the media coverage their cases have received is negligible. What's being done to change this?
Published: Jun. 5, 2023 at 4:49 PM MST|Updated: Jun. 16, 2023 at 8:03 PM MST
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PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women – known as MMIW- is an issue that has exploded as years have gone on in the shadows with little to no attention and focus.

Native women in Arizona are disappearing at staggering rates, yet the media coverage their cases have received doesn’t compare to the media spotlight on cases of white women who have gone missing, or been murdered, in the United States.

The True Crime Arizona team set out to uncover why this has spiraled out of control, where the problems stem from, and who is going to step up to fix it.

The documentary is centered around two cases: the 2002 disappearance of Laverda Sorrell and the 2019 murder of Jamie Yazzie. The mystery and frustration that surround both cases highlight where things have gone wrong, leaving families struggling for answers.

We took our investigation to the Arizona governor, attorney general, head of the FBI in Phoenix, and Navajo Nation president, just to name a few. With the acknowledgment that their offices need to do better, these leaders are putting new pieces into play to address the issues our tribal communities face and get them the resources and attention they need to keep our Native women safe.

For so long, nobody was listening, until now.

No longer will they be… The Forgotten.

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