Dateline Missing in America - Ep. 18: The Vanishing of Melanie James

Dateline Originals

NBC News

True Crime

4.6 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melanie James, 21, was last seen in the spring of 2014 in Farmington, New Mexico. Melanie’s sister, Melissa, saw her walking down the street with an unidentified man on April 20. Days later, police discovered Melanie’s purse and duffel bag in an alleyway in Farmington, but saw no sign of Melanie. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz talks to Melanie’s sister, Melissa James, her mother, Lela Mailman, as well as Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe and Detective Daven Badoni. Melanie is 5’ and weighed about 115 lbs. when she was last seen. At the time of her disappearance, she had dark black hair and a chip on one of her top front teeth. Melanie would be 32 years old today. If you have information about Melanie’s case, please call the Farmington Police Department at 505-334-6622. Get more information and see pictures of Melanie James here: https://www.nbcnews.com/datelinemissing Visit the New Mexico Department of Justice's website for missing and murdered Indigenous people: https://mmip.nmdoj.gov/ This episode was originally published on July 30, 2024.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's called the Four Corners region, the area where four southwestern states meet.
0:09.9	Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.
0:14.2	There's even a spot where you can stand in all four states at once.
0:19.3	Historically, that same spot also marks the land boundary of two American
0:24.2	Indian nations, the Navajo Nation, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Reservation. It's a rocky landscape,
0:32.3	rich with indigenous culture and history. Some Pueblo ruins date back as far as 1,300 AD.
0:39.9	It's in this area, in the town of Farmington, New Mexico,
0:43.9	where a 21-year-old Native American woman went missing.
0:47.7	Her name is Melanie James.
0:50.9	This is her mother.
0:52.0	I'm not going to give up on trying to look for her.
0:55.0	Every little opportunity I have to put awareness out there is what I'm going to do.
1:03.0	Lila Mailman has been looking for her daughter for more than 10 years.
1:07.0	Unfortunately, where she lives is a place where people like her daughter go missing, much too frequently.
1:15.0	Melanie's disappearance has baffled the community there and become part of a rallying cry in a persistent crisis.
1:22.2	No more missing relatives. No more missing sisters.
1:27.3	We just have had this ongoing system of failures when it comes to Native Americans.
1:34.2	It's been going all for centuries and centuries, but isn't it that time to stop it.
1:49.4	Melanie's family believes she is still alive and still out there somewhere.
1:53.0	And they desperately want her back with them.
1:54.8	That's where you come in.
2:04.4	Please listen closely because you or someone you know might have information that could help solve this case and bring Melanie home.
	...

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