Hanna Harris

Hanna Harris was a 21-year-old citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and the mother of a young son. She lived in Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. On July 3-4, 2013, she left home to watch Independence Day fireworks and visited the Jimtown Bar near the reservation border. She never returned. Her family last heard from her around the early hours of July 4.

When Harris did not come home, her mother, Malinda Limberhand, reported her missing on July 5, 2013. According to the family and later reporting, law enforcement was slow to respond, and relatives were initially told Harris was likely out drinking and would return on her own. With little official action, Limberhand, her family, and the Northern Cheyenne community organized their own search. They gathered surveillance footage from the Jimtown Bar, located Harris's car, distributed missing-person notices, and raised reward money. On July 8, 2013, a volunteer search team found Harris's badly decomposed body near the Lame Deer rodeo grounds.

Because of the delay in recovering her remains, physical evidence was severely compromised, and an official cause of death could not be formally established. Investigators and, later, court testimony indicated Harris had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death. The case was prosecuted in federal court because the crime occurred on tribal land.

Two people were convicted. Eugenia Ann Rowland pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, admitting that she and her partner beat Harris after an altercation; on February 13, 2015, a federal judge sentenced Rowland to 22 years in prison. Garrett Sidney Henderson Wadda pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact, admitting he moved and dumped Harris's body at the rodeo grounds; in June 2015 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. (Note: the convicted parties are Rowland and Wadda; earlier references naming an 'Angelina Whiteman/LaFramboise' do not match the court record.)

On August 12, 2013, roughly 200 people joined Limberhand in a 'Justice for Hanna' march in Lame Deer, calling attention to the slow response by tribal and federal authorities and to other overlooked victims. Harris's case became a catalyst for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement. In 2017, the Montana congressional delegation, including Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester, secured a U.S. Senate resolution designating May 5 as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. May 5 was chosen because it was Hanna Harris's birthday; she would have turned 30 in 2022.

Her death also spurred legislative change in Montana. 'Hanna's Act,' sponsored by Representative Rae Peppers and named in Harris's memory, was signed into Montana law in 2019. It authorizes the state Department of Justice to employ a missing-persons specialist to assist with cases across the state, maintain databases, support families, and train law enforcement. Both people convicted in the case remain in custody, and each year on May 5, communities wear red and hold events honoring Harris and other missing and murdered Indigenous people.