Roy Allen Tsatoke

Case background and investigation

Roy Allen Tsatoke, known to friends and family as "Rude," was 26 years old when he disappeared from McKinleyville, a coastal town in Humboldt County, California, on September 22, 2024. Born January 16, 1998, in Redding, where he attended Shasta High School, Tsatoke was described by his mother, Heather Allen, as someone who kept in close contact with family and kept his phone with him regularly. Through his father, a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, Roy was a member of a federally recognized tribe. At the time he vanished, he was house-sitting for his ex-girlfriend's mother at her home on Hiller Road, where he was last seen around noon that Sunday.

Later that same night, investigators said, his phone last pinged north of Willow Creek, off Highway 96 — roughly 30 miles inland from McKinleyville. According to NBC's Dateline, law enforcement said they were confident Roy was in a moving vehicle when the phone last registered, but they were unable to determine who might have given him a ride or how he came to be in a vehicle. After that ping, all activity on his phone and his bank accounts stopped. He was reportedly wearing a black shirt and black pants and carrying a black tactical backpack; he wore hoop earrings and distinctive rings, including a Native American headdress ring on his right pinky. He is described as 5 feet 5 inches tall and about 160 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Roy's sister asked law enforcement to issue a Feather Alert, California's emergency notification system for missing Indigenous people. According to Dateline, the alert was delayed while the Arcata Police Department coordinated with the Kiowa Tribe in Oklahoma and determined whether the case met state criteria; the California Highway Patrol ultimately issued the Feather Alert on October 2, 2024, nine days after Roy was reported missing. The Arcata Police Department is the lead investigating agency (case number 24-2194), and Humboldt County Sheriff's deputies conducted initial searches in the Hoopa and Willow Creek areas. Roy is listed in NamUs as case MP148797.

His family has kept the search active. In early December 2024, relatives held a community meeting in Arcata and organized a volunteer search party in Willow Creek. "He's got family and friends that miss him and love him, and none of this makes sense," Heather Allen told KRCR at the time. "None of it is typical behavior for Roy to just go quiet." On the one-year anniversary in September 2025, the family gathered outside the Humboldt County Courthouse and held a candlelight vigil at Hiller Park in McKinleyville. Lost Feathers, a Phoenix-based nonprofit staffed by retired law enforcement professionals that assists Native families, took on the case pro bono, and in May 2026 Dateline's "Missing in America" series profiled the disappearance. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Arcata Police Department at (707) 822-2426.