Missing Person: Ranelle Rose Bennett

Founded by Robert Burnes, the Grey Winds project is a non-profit organization that was created to fight the kidnapping, trafficking, and sexual exploitation of Native American women. As an organization, our mission is to help and fight for all who have faced these horrors, have loved ones who have encountered them, or are in danger of facing them. Today, I am going to talk about Ranelle Rose Bennett, an American Indian or Alaska Native who went missing from the Navajo Nation in 2021.

For decades, Native American women have been going missing and have faced the terrors of trafficking and sexual exploitation. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women (84.3 percent) have experienced violence in their lifetime, including 56.1 percent who have experienced sexual violence, and Ranelle Rose Bennett is one of those women.

Bennett is a member of the Navajo Nation, also known as the Diné, which is known to be the largest Native American tribe in the United States. It is primarily located in the Four Corners Region, where Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah meet. Their culture is rich, and their language, traditional arts and crafts, and spiritual beliefs are centered around their relationship with the land.

Ranelle Rose Bennett, who is 5'1, about 125 pounds with black hair and brown eyes, a tattoo of the name “Treasten” on the right inner forearm, and a tattoo of the letter “B” behind her left ear, went missing from Shiprock, New Mexico. She has a daughter who had an upcoming birthday and was at her mother’s house to discuss the birthday party. After she left, she did not make it to her daughter's birthday party. The police investigated for some time, but the case still remains unsolved, and the reason for her disappearance remains unclear.

It has been a few years since she went missing, so she may look older than the photo attached. She was last seen in New Mexico, but could be found anywhere.

If you see her, please contact her in one of the listed ways: Text BIAMMU and your tip to 847411, Call in tips to 1-833-560-2065, or Email OJS_MMU@bia.gov.