Press Release
For Immediate Release:February 20, 2025
WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today that the Office of Justice Services has launched Operation Spirit Return, an initiative to help solve missing and unidentified person cases involving American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States.
The initiative is being conducted by the BIA’s Missing and Murdered Unit to identify unknown human remains located within or close to Indian Country and are believed to belong to either American Indian or Alaska Native persons. The operation will focus on reuniting remains with family members and returning them to their tribal communities. The unit is actively investigating 15 unidentified persons cases from its regions, including Alaska.
“The crisis of American Indians and Alaska Natives gone missing or who have been murdered, but whose cases remained unsolved, has been decades in the making, and we are committed to ending it,” said Bryan Mercier, director of the BIA exercising the delegated authority of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. “Thanks to the BIA Missing and Murdered Unit and its partners, our Operation Spirit Return initiative will help return missing relatives to their families, so that they can be comforted knowing their loved ones have come home.”
“Each member of the Missing and Murdered Unit is dedicated to combatting the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis,” said BIA Deputy Bureau Director for Justice Services Richard “Glen” Melville. “With our partners in federal law enforcement and the genetic research community, we are striving to make a meaningful impact for the tribal families and communities who have been left for years with unanswered questions about those who went missing. Operation Spirit Return’s focus is on identifying these victims and sending them home, and we are actively engaged in achieving that result.”
The Missing and Murdered Unit is collaborating with the federal database NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and the Texas-based company Othram, which utilizes forensic genetic genealogy to identify human remains.
The Missing and Murdered Unit began as the Cold Case task force, part of Operation Lady Justice, a multi-agency effort established by President Trump’s administration in 2019 to enhance the operation of the criminal justice system and address the staggering number of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Natives in tribal communities.
For more information about the Missing and Murdered Unit or to learn about how you can get involved visit www.bia.gov/mmu.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs directly administers and funds tribally operated infrastructure, law enforcement and justice, social services, tribal governance, and trust land and natural and energy resources management programs for the Nation’s federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes through four offices: Indian Services, Justice Services, Trust Services, and Field Operations.
The BIA Office of Justice Services upholds tribal sovereignty and provides for the safety of Indian communities by ensuring the protection of life and property, enforcing laws, maintaining justice and order, and by ensuring sentenced American Indian offenders are confined in safe, secure, and humane environments. Ensuring public safety and justice is arguably the most fundamental of government services provided in tribal communities. Visit the BIA-OJS MMU website for more information on the Unit’s work to address the nation’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis.
