Indigenous Woman Vanished 5 Years Ago After $400,000 Abuse Settlement — and Her Remains Were Just Found

Authorities in Washington State have confirmed that the remains of Mary Ellen Johnson-Davis, an Indigenous woman who vanished in November 2020, have been recovered.

Johnson-Davis, a 39-year-old member of the Tulalip Tribes, was reported missing just before Thanksgiving that year. Her husband called her family to say she had disappeared, and, according to relatives interviewed in the 2024 documentary Missing From Fire Trail Road, he later left the state and changed his phone number.

On October 31, the FBI’s Seattle Field Office announced that human remains discovered in June in a remote part of North Snohomish County had been identified as those of Johnson-Davis. The site is about 30 miles from Firetrail Road on the Tulalip Reservation, where she was last seen.

Although her husband has not been named a suspect, Tulalip Tribal Police Detective David Sallee said in 2021 that he was considered a person of interest in her disappearance.

Johnson-Davis’s sister, Nona Blouin, described her as having endured a difficult life marked by abuse and hardship. Both sisters were placed in foster care with a non-Native family, where they suffered sexual abuse, she said in the documentary.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports that more than half of Native American women experience sexual violence, and four out of five suffer some form of violence in their lifetimes. The report also highlights that Indigenous women are disproportionately victimized by non-Native men.

“We’ve learned through research that some of the men in jail would say, ‘You can go rape an Indian woman and you won’t get caught,’” said Deborah Parker, former vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribe and an executive producer of the documentary.

The sisters later sued Washington State and its child protective services agency, each receiving a $400,000 settlement, according to Blouin.

The cause and manner of Johnson-Davis’s death have not yet been determined, the FBI said. A reward of up to $60,000 is being offered by the FBI and the Tulalip Tribes for information that leads to the identification, arrest, and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI Seattle Field Office at 206-622-0460, 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324), or submit tips online at tips.fbi.gov.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, you can text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to connect with a certified crisis counselor.