A federal grand jury has indicted a New Mexico man in the case of a missing elderly woman on the Navajo Nation. Ella Mae Begay remains missing after more than a year-and-a-half and her case has gained national attention.
The two-count indictment alleges that 23-year-old Preston Henry Tolth assaulted Begay during a June 2021 carjacking in Sweetwater, Ariz., a community near Four Corners on the Navajo Nation. Prosecutors say Tolth drove Begay’s Ford F-150 pickup truck across state lines and intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to her. He faces decades in prison if convicted.
Begay’s family has aggressively sought answers in her disappearance. In a social media post this week an attorney representing them called the indictment a “bittersweet day.”
The investigation by the FBI and Navajo Nation law enforcement is ongoing and the U.S. Justice Department says it’s part of a broader attempt to solve cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
Last summer, Ella Begay’s niece Seraphine Warren walked from the Navajo Nation to Washington D.C. to advocate for her aunt and other First Nations’ people.
For decades, Native American and Alaska Native communities have had some of the highest rates of assault, abduction and murder in the U.S.
