This is the first episode in a two-part series, and part of our larger season focused on family advocates and the effect of the MMIP that's missing and murdered indigenous people crisis in the United States.

This episode discusses domestic and intimate partner violence. Listener discretion is advised.

This is the fall line.

In May of 2004, Tiffany Reed was 16 years old, and she was finishing out her sophomore year of high school.

She was living in Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation Reservation.

That's where her school, Northwest High, was located to. Tiffany was probably feeling the boredom that bites at so many of us when we're young and summer is on the edge of arriving. Her mother,

Deidre, had gotten a few calls from the high school to report that Tiffany had been late more often

and was Mark Tarty for class. Tiffany had made a new group of friends since starting at Northwest.

Before that, she'd been at another school, where she lived in the on-campus dormitories available to students.

And maybe that's why she'd been more lax about her attendance.

There were no signs that anything serious was going on in Tiffany's life that spring.

She'd been a quiet, reserved child and teenager.

Maybe she was just trying out a little independence. There had been a few instances

when she hadn't come home when her family expected her, but eventually Tiffany would call,

and she always came home in a day or two. And according to her loved ones, a little teenage rebellion

was not a big cause for concern.

Tiffany had plans, and she had passions.

She had a deep love for her nieces and for animals, too.

According to People Magazine,

she was always bringing home stray kittens that she found because she could not stand to leave them outside and vulnerable.

Her older sister DeAndra told the magazine that her little sister dreamed of eventually studying

to become a veterinarian.

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