Before I tell you when Delilah disappeared, I want to tell you something much more important.
Delilah may still be out there.
Her name is Delilah White Dress.
Not was.
Is.
She is Oglala Sioux.
She is a mother.
She is a grandmother.
She belongs to a family and a community whose history with her cannot possibly be contained inside the few lines of a missing-person bulletin.
And somewhere, someone may know something about where she is.
That is where I want us to begin.
Not with her height.
Not with her weight.
Not with what she was wearing.
Not even with the black wheelchair she often used.
With Delilah.
Because before March 2025 became permanently attached to her name, Delilah White Dress had already lived more than sixty years.
There were ordinary days.
There were conversations.
There were people she loved and people who loved her.
There were tiny moments no police report could ever document.
There was Delilah standing in front of a mirror, putting on an earring.
There was a woman simply living her life.
Before She Was Missing
There is frustratingly little publicly available about Delilah’s everyday life.
And I will not invent what isn’t there.
I don’t know how she took her coffee.
I don’t know what made her laugh until her stomach hurt.
I don’t know which songs she turned up when they came on.
I don’t know what stories her family could tell about her that would immediately make everyone who knows her say:
That’s Delilah.
Those memories belong to the people who know and love her.
But perhaps the absence of those details from the public record tells us something important, too.
A missing-person report gives us measurements.
A family knows a woman.
Delilah was born August 5, 1961. The Bureau of Indian Affairs identifies her as a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and connects her to Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
And public records give us one particularly painful glimpse into the life she was living shortly before she disappeared.
Her son, Christopher John White Dress, died on July 14, 2024.
He was forty-five years old.
His obituary describes Christopher as happy, humble and someone who loved making people laugh. Among the surviving family members listed was his mother:
Delilah White Dress of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
A mother buried her son.
Less than a year later, that mother would be missing.
Delilah, simply being Delilah.
I keep returning to that photograph.
She isn’t posing for a missing-person poster. She isn’t a case number. She isn’t evidence.
She’s putting on an earring.
It is such an ordinary thing.
And maybe that is exactly why I want you to see it.
Because this is what gets lost when someone’s disappearance becomes a case file.
The ordinary life that existed before everyone started searching.
Then Delilah Disappeared
Sometime in early March 2025, Delilah White Dress disappeared from Pine Ridge.
There is an important discrepancy in the official record.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs lists Delilah’s missing date as March 1, 2025.
South Dakota’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse lists it as March 5, 2025.
I am not going to quietly choose whichever date makes this story cleaner.
The records disagree.
What they do not disagree about is this:
Delilah disappeared.
She has brown eyes and dark hair. The BIA lists her height as approximately 5 feet 5 inches and her weight as approximately 170 pounds.
And there is another detail.
Delilah often used a black wheelchair.
Delilah Wte Dress often used a black wheelchair. She has been missing from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, since March 2025.
That photograph changes something for me.
Because now we aren’t merely reading the words limited mobility.
We see her.
And questions become harder to ignore.
How does a woman who may rely upon a wheelchair simply disappear?
Where was her wheelchair?
Who last saw her?
Did someone help her leave?
Did someone see something that seemed insignificant at the time?
Did somebody know something then?
Does somebody know something now?
I cannot answer those questions.
And I won’t speculate about what happened to Delilah where the evidence does not tell us.
What I can tell you is that, as of August 2026, her case remains open.
The Oglala Sioux Tribal Police, FBI, and Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit are seeking information that could help locate her.
Please Look at Her Face
This is why I wanted several photographs of Delilah included here.
People do not look exactly the same in every photograph.
Age changes us. Lighting changes us. Hair changes. Expressions change.
One photograph might mean nothing to someone.
Another might trigger recognition.
So please—
look at her face.
Not quickly.
Look at her eyes.
Look at the shape of her face.
Look at her in the wheelchair.
Look at her putting on her earring.
Remember her name.
Delilah White Dress.
Because someone may have seen her.
Someone may remember something.
And something that seemed unimportant in March 2025 may not be unimportant anymore.
People Are Still Looking
Delilah has not been forgotten.
In July 2026, more than a year after she disappeared, Medicine Wheel Ride, an organization supporting families affected by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives crisis, renewed the public call for information about her disappearance.
They asked people to share her information and help put Delilah’s face back in front of the public.
That matters.
Because awareness can sound like such a small thing.
A share. A photograph. A name spoken aloud. A poster passed from one person to another.
But when someone is still missing, awareness isn’t merely symbolic.
Awareness can be part of the search.
So we are going to keep putting her face where people can see it.
Her Name Is Delilah White Dress
There is something profoundly different about writing the story of someone who is still missing.
I cannot give you an ending.
And I refuse to manufacture one.
I cannot tell you what happened to Delilah.
I cannot tell you where she is.
I cannot tell you whether someone failed her.
I cannot tell you whether someone hurt her.
I can only tell you what we know.
Delilah White Dress is missing.
And somewhere there is a place where she should be.
There are people who deserve answers.
There are ordinary moments she should still be having.
There should be earrings to put on.
Conversations to have.
People to annoy.
People to laugh with.
People to love.
Days nobody photographs because nobody realizes they will someday wish desperately that they had one more.
And there may be somebody somewhere who knows something that could bring an answer to the people waiting for her.
So I will not end Delilah’s story by telling you how her life ended.
We don’t know that it did.
Instead, I am asking you to remember the woman whose face you just saw.
Remember the woman putting on her earring.
Remember the woman sitting in her wheelchair.
Remember the mother who lost her son.
Remember that somewhere beyond the measurements, dates, photographs and agency numbers is an entire human life.
Her name is Delilah White Dress.
She is Oglala Sioux.
She is a mother.
She is a grandmother.
She has been missing from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, since March 2025.
And today—
Delilah is still missing.
If You Know Something
The Bureau of Indian Affairs lists Delilah’s case as OPEN.
The investigating agencies are the Oglala Sioux Tribal Police, FBI, and Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit.
If you have information that may help locate Delilah:
BIA Missing and Murdered Unit
Text BIAMMU + your tip to 847411
Call 1-833-560-2065
Email OJS_MMU@bia.gov
Oglala Sioux Tribal Police Department
605-867-5111
Official BIA case page for Delilah White Dress
Please share her photograph.
Please remember her face.
Please say her name.
Delilah White Dress.
Not with a number.
With her. ❤️🪶
