across the nation, it s heart wrenching. to really think about how we are invisible. i don t want another family to ever feel like how we felt. hello, and welcome to dateline. we carla yellow bird mmiw grew up surrounded by love on her north dakota indian reservation, when she vanished her family was frantic to find her, and believed authoritarians were not doing enough. it is a common feeling in native american circles. but the yellow birds had a secret weapon, carla s own aunt happened to be a no nonsense investigator determined to find the truth. here s andrea canning with the secrets of spirit lake. there s been a lot of sacrifice that went with this, on a personal level, you know. but you are never done? never done. her name is lisa yellow bird, her job defies description. investigator, interrogator, searcher of last result. the one people turn to in their very worst moments. this is backbreaking, this is 24/7. this is you living and breathing this. const
that. she wanted to talk more with suna. so, lissa turned to facebook yet again. but this time, she focused on suna. what is this your posting on facebook that your niece was last seen with me? it made him angry enough to pick up the phone again. you need to get honest with me because i m done playing. well, i ve been only honest with you. i don t know what you want because i m not making nothing up. in their previous call, lissa tried to build a bond with suna. now she came at him full throttle. you think i haven t dealt with your kind of people before? i have. i will come get her personally myself if i have to. but i want to know. lissa s strategy was to show suna how angry he was, to intimidate him into giving up more details. you tell me where my niece s body is at and i will let god [bleep] reckon with you, okay? because we already know how it s gone down and i m telling you right now, you don t know who to trust because your own
something was very wrong? yes. i did. carlo is out there, somewhere, maybe alone. if anybody knew how to find her it was her aunt lissa. turns out carla and aunt lissa shared more than family, they shared a past. coming up carla had gone down a bad path. she went down the same path i went down. aunt lissa gets to work. i will keep digging and digging, it wasn t even a question of if i was going to find her, it was just i am going to find her. investigators uncover the first clues. there was a report that she had been in the silver car. when dateline continues. teline continues breeze driftin on by. .you know how i feel. you don t have to take. [coughing] .copd sitting down. it s a new dawn,. .it s a new day, it s time to make a stand.
waited as lot enforcement search for her niece, carla. as day after day went by with no answers, lissa grew impatient. when something is having that so close to home for you, how do you kick into action? well, i put my poker face on and dealt with it like i did any other case. like so many times before, she stepped in. this time, for her own family. she took it all into herself and got it rolling. to start, lissa needed her sources to talk. she could work the phones, knock on doors, walk the prairies. but out here where cell service is not existent in some areas, the most effective way to communicate can be through social media. and lissa had a massive network
so they had stolen her money and her drugs? yes. why kill her? why not just steal it and leave her there? the intention was to rob her. it didn t go as planned. obviously. and when it happened the way it did, he claims that it was just as big of a shock to him. i didn t know that was going to happen, it shouldn t have happened. lissa called me. that s when she told me, you know, they know where she s at and i just said, you know, is she alive? she was like, no. so, you still had that little, tiny glimmer of hope? even though i knew, but still, when she told me no i was like, i started really crying. i mean, it s just something you don t ever want to hear in your life. this was your first born. yes. so, i didn t think, i mean, i didn t want it ever be true,. in mandan, detective bowman