Boyfriend of a Navajo mother of three is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder: “It hits me right in the heart”

After family members of a slain Navajo woman expressed their grief in a federal courtroom, a judge on Monday sentenced her boyfriend to life in prison for first-degree murder in a case that has become emblematic of what officials call an epidemic of missing and murdered people. Indigenous women.

Five years after Jaime Yazzie was murdered, her relatives and friends cheered as they streamed out of the downtown Phoenix courthouse after U.S. District Judge Douglas L. Rayas announced the verdict against Tre C. James.

Yazzie was 32 and the mother of three sons when she disappeared from her community of Pinon in Navajo territory in the summer of 2019. Despite a high-profile search, her remains were not found until November 2021 on the neighboring Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. At the time, the FBI offered a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Yazzie's disappearance and/or death.

James was convicted last fall of fatally shooting Yazzie. The jury also found James guilty of multiple counts of domestic violence against three of his former partners.

Yazzie's three sons, now 18, 14 and 10, and other relatives attended Monday's sentencing along with several dozen supporters. About another dozen supporters stayed outside to demonstrate on the sidewalk, chanting slogans and beating drums.

“There is no sentence you can impose to make up for that,” Yazzie's mother, Ethelene Denny, told the judge before the announcement. Denny detailed the pain the family has endured from the moment Yazzie disappeared, through the desperate 2 1/2-year search, to the ultimate shock and grief when her remains were found.

Denny told the judge she was searching for the right words because English is her second language, CBS affiliate KPHO-TV reported.

“When I looked in the dictionaries, I wanted to have those powerful words and everything to emphasize my statement,” Denny said.

Federal prosecutors also played a previously recorded video statement from Yazzie's father, James Yazzie, who has since died.

“This is not right,” the elder Yazzie said in the video, visibly ill and having difficulty speaking. “To take away my daughter and the mother of my grandchildren is a blow to my heart.”

Leona Yazzie, Jamie's older sister, became emotional when she saw the video, KPHO-TV reported.

“Seeing him again made my heart happy, but my heart is still breaking and being mended,” Yazzie said.

The FBI welcomed the verdict.

“Today's verdict underscores the fact that Jamie Yazzie has not been forgotten by the FBI or our federal and tribal partners,” Jose A. Perez, special agent in charge of the FBI in Phoenix, said in a statement. “Our office is committed to combating the violence that Arizona's Native American communities face every day, and we will continue our efforts to protect families, assist victims, and ensure justice is served in every case we prosecute.”

Yazzie's case attracted attention from the grassroots movement Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, which raises awareness of widespread violence against indigenous women and girls in the United States and Canada.

The U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs describes violence against indigenous women as a crisis.

Women from Native American and Alaska Native communities have long been subjected to assault, kidnapping and murder. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice found that more than four in five Native American and Alaska Native women — 84% — have experienced violence in their lifetime, including 56% victims of sexual violence.

“We got justice for Jamie. We did it,” Yazzie's family and friends chanted after the verdict was announced in federal court in Phoenix, KPHO-TV reported.