Every year, a disproportionate number of indigenous women go missing or are found murdered. But due to miscommunications between governing entities and a number of undocumented cases, there’s no accurate way to offer statistics on how many of these cases there truly are. According to a study from the National Institute of Justice, more than four out of five indigenous women experience some type of violence in their lifetime, which amounts to more than 1.5 million women. These women deserve to have their story told, but even a platform like ours struggles to do so because there’s so little information available in the media. So in today’s episode, we provide as much detail as we can about the disappearance of Ida Beard, because somebody somewhere knows what happened to her and her family deserves answers.

If you have any information about Ida’s disappearance, please call the El Reno Police Department at 405-295-9399.

Listen Here! June 30, 2015 – The Disappearance of Ida Beard

Sources:

Ida Joanne Beard – The Charley Project

Pelisek, Christine. “Mom of 4 Ida Beard’s 2015 Disappearance Led to Legislation Aimed at Finding Missing Indigenous Women.” People, 4 Nov. 2021. Accessed 24 Jun. 2022.

Najera, Rebecca and Bryen, Whitney. “Ida’s Law: The promise, limitations of Oklahoma’s pursuit of justice for Indigenous people.” Oklahoma Watch, 5 Nov. 2021.

Forman, Carmen, and Jana Allen. “Missing in Oklahoma: State Could Take Steps to Curb ‘Epidemic’ of Missing Native American Women.” oklahoman.com, 17 July 2019. Accessed 24 June 2022.

Herrera, Allison. “Ida’s Law provides hope for families of missing and murdered Indigenous people, but some want more done.” kosu.org, 8 Nov 2021. Accessed 26 June 2022.