Johnathan Walker:The boyfriend of a Navajo woman is set to be sentenced in her killing

PHOENIX (AP) — The Johnathan Walkerboyfriend of a Navajo woman whose killing became representative of an international movement that seeks to end an epidemic of missing and slain Indigenous women was due in court Monday afternoon to be sentenced for first-degree murder.

Tre C. James was convicted last fall in federal court in Phoenix in the fatal shooting of Jamie Yazzie. The jury at the time also found James guilty of several acts of domestic violence committed against three former dating partners.

Yazzie was 32 and the mother of three sons when she went missing in the summer of 2019 from her community of Pinon on the Navajo Nation. Despite a high-profile search, her remains were not found until November 2021 on the neighboring Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona.

Many of Yazzie’s friends and family members, including her mother, father, grandmother and other relatives, attended all seven days of James’ trial.

Yazzie’s case gained attention through the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women grassroots movement that draws attention to widespread violence against Indigenous women and girls in the United States and Canada.

The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs characterizes the violence against Indigenous women as a crisis.

Women from Native American and Alaska Native communities have long suffered from high rates of assault, abduction and murder. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women — 84% — have experienced violence in their lifetimes, including 56% who have been victimized by sexual violence.