SAN XAVIER RESERVATION, Ariz. (KGUN) — Arizona's Indigenous communities came together Friday night to honor the life of Emily Pike and demand justice in her case.
14-year-old Pike went missing and was found murdered in Mesa in mid-February. Scripps News Group reported at the beginning of March that are no suspects in her murder.
That's why over a hundred people met outside the Pascua Yaqui Administrative building Friday. Many wore red or carried signs with a picture or drawing of Pike.
From there, the group marched around 4.5 miles to the San Xavier Del Bac Mission on the San Xavier Reservation.
The group marched in with chants and left behind candles and prayers for Pike, her loved ones and the hundreds of other missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls around the country.
Many at the vigil, like Stella Cruz, said they saw themselves or their family in Emily.
Cruz drove down from Case Grande.
“I see her face, and she looks like me when I was little," Cruz said. "I think that could’ve been me. Through different things that didn’t happen that could’ve, that could’ve been me, but I’m still here and she's not. I’m going to be here to remember her, as we all are.”
Arizona has the third highest rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States according to a report by the Urban Indian Health Institute.
