Quick disclaimer, this case does involve the sexual assault of a teenager and though the information is

provided without gratuitous detail. It is still difficult to listen to. Listener discretion is advised.

In 1993, Sequoia Vargas told her mother she was spending the night with a friend.

When she didn't come home, her family reported her missing to the Hawaii County Police, who initially believed the teen had run away.

The case would be reclassified as a homicide when someone came forward with a confession,

but it would still take nearly seven years for justice. I'm Charlie and welcome to Crime Lines.

Welcome to Crime Lines. Welcome back if you've been here before. I appreciate everyone who clicks play whether you are listening to every episode or you just drop in when a topic interests you.

This week's episode is a missing a murdered Indigenous women case and it's actually both in that we do know the victim was murdered.

However, she remains missing. This is the case of Sequoia Vargas who lived in the Puna district on the big island of Hawaii.

Sequoia was not native Hawaiian though her uncle said that people often assumed she was.

She was actually from an Indigenous group called the Raramari, which is also known as Ralamuli and also as Tara Humara.

Tara Humara is the Spanish colonizer word for the group and I see where rumoury used most often so we will go with that.

For those new to crime lines, most episodes do not include a history lesson at the beginning but the MMIW cases do.

So we are going to go over some of that before we jump into the case.

The Raramari are the original inhabitants of what is the present day Mexican state of Chihuahua, which is on the border of the US.

It borders both New Mexico and Texas.

When Spain began colonizing Mexico, the Raramari resisted by not fighting but by moving.

They moved farther into the mountains where they flourished in parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental.

The Raramari population is estimated to be between 50 and 70,000 people today.

It's difficult to really know because Mexico does not have tribal enrollment.

While they do recognize Indigenous people and there are laws protecting sovereignty to some degree, it's not the same in the US or in Canada as far as having people in roll or claim a certain tribe.

So this number comes largely from self reporting.

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