PHOENIX (AP) — The boyfriend of a Navajo woman whose killing became representative of an international movement that seeks to end an epidemic of missing and slain Indigenous women was due in court Monday afternoon to be sentenced for first-degree murder.
Tre C. James was convicted last fall in federal court in Phoenix in the fatal shooting of Jamie Yazzie. The jury at the time also found James guilty of several acts of domestic violence committed against three former dating partners.
Yazzie was 32 and the mother of three sons when she went missing in the summer of 2019 from her community of Pinon on the Navajo Nation. Despite a high-profile search, her remains were not found until November 2021 on the neighboring Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona.
Many of Yazzie’s friends and family members, including her mother, father, grandmother and other relatives, attended all seven days of James’ trial.
Yazzie’s case gained attentionthrough the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women …