This is part one of a two-part series.

This series contains discussion of suicide, homicide, crime scenes, and violence.

Listener discretion is advised.

This is the Fall Line.

The name Carolyn DeFord is one that will be familiar to many of our listeners.

After all, she's someone that you've heard from on the Fall Line a number of times.

We covered her mother, Leona LeClercansi's missing persons case in 2021,

and she connected us with a family of Cherokee family last year.

Carolyn runs the organization Missing and Murdered Native Americans,

and works as the Trafficking Project Coordinator at the Puyallup Tribe of Indians.

This year, Carolyn brought us two more cases and connected us with two more families.

One of those stories is coming to you later this summer when we move back to our seasonal format.

The very deep dive shows and intense coverage we brought you in our first several years.

The other is the 2016 case of Matthew Rattlesnake Grant.

In December of 2016, Matthew was in a state of transition.

He turned 21 that October 31, Halloween.

Just a year before, in late November of 2015, he'd moved from Alberta, Canada to Montana.

After traveling back and forth between his maternal and paternal families for most of his life,

he decided to settle with his late father, Ray Grant's family, on the Black Feed Indian Reservation.

His aunt, Rhonda Grant Connelly, told us that Matthew was excited to begin his new adventure in Montana.

He had lots of plans and hopes, but there just wasn't enough time.

Here's what his aunt Rhonda told us.

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