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Mary Johnson, an Indigenous woman, went missing nearly a year ago. While the FBI recently offered a reward, activists say that’s not enough - CNN

In the months before Mary Johnson disappeared, her sister said she wasn’t herself.

Johnson and her husband, who had been living in the home of her sister Gerry Davis in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, abruptly left and moved to Marysville about 40 miles away, Davis said. She rarely answered her phone when Davis called, and only occasionally responded to texts. Then one day, Johnson’s estranged husband contacted Davis to say he hadn’t seen his wife in weeks.The last time anyone said they saw Mary Johnson – also known as Mary Davis – was on November 25, 2020. Johnson, an enrolled citizen of the Tulalip Tribes and then 39 years old, was walking on a road in Western Washington, en route to the house of some friends in a nearby town. She never made it there.

It’s been nearly 10 months since Johnson was reported missing. A billboard on Interstate 5 and local media coverage have yielded few credible tips, and tribal police have yet to make an arrest in the case. Only last week did the FBI announce it would offer a reward of up to $10,000 for information about Johnson’s disappearance. While family members and advocates welcome the move, they also wonder what took so long.

“If that was a little white girl out there or a white woman, I’m sure they would have had helicopters, airplanes and dogs and searches – a lot of manpower out there – scouring where that person was lost,” Nona Blouin, Johnson’s older sister, said. “None of that has happened for our sister.”

Those feelings ring especially true this week, as the case of missing 22-year-old Gabby Petito captured the attention of the internet. Meanwhile, at least 710 Indigenous people – more than half of them women or girls – were reported missing between 2011 and September 2020 in Wyoming, where Petito’s remains were found this week, according to a University of Wyoming report. While about half were usually found within a week of going missing, as per the report, family members and advocates said none received the same level of media coverage nor the same urgency in law enforcement’s response as missing white people.  …