Before I tell you how Hanna died, I should tell you that Hanna lived.
Her name was Hanna Harris.
She was 21 years old.
She was Northern Cheyenne.
She was a daughter.
A sister.
And she was a mother.
When Hanna disappeared from Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in July 2013, she left behind a young son.
That is where I want us to begin.
Not with the place where her body would eventually be found.
Not with the people who would eventually be convicted.
Not even with the failures that would become part of her story.
With Hanna.
Because Hanna Harris had already lived twenty-one years before most of the country would ever learn her name.
Before Everything Changed
Hanna DeAnn Harris was born May 5, 1992, in Billings, Montana.
She grew up surrounded by family, culture, tradition, and faith. She was raised learning Northern Cheyenne traditions and also had a Catholic upbringing. She was proud of her Lakota relatives on her father’s side and made trips to Pine Ridge whenever she could to visit them.
And Hanna was Grandpa Ray’s girl.
Her family remembered how she followed her grandfather wherever he went. They went to Sweat Lodge together. They went to high-school ball games. Sometimes they simply drove around.
These are the details I do not want us to lose.
Because they do not explain Hanna’s death.
They explain Hanna’s life.
She graduated from Billings West High School in 2010. Her family remembered her as someone willing to lend a helping hand wherever she went.
And then Hanna became a mother.
Her son was born August 28, 2012.
Her family described that little boy as the love of her life.
She devoted herself to him.
And there is a photograph of them together that tells us something no statistic ever could.
Hanna is sitting in a vehicle beside her sleeping baby.
And she is smiling.
Not Hanna Harris, MMIW.
Not Hanna Harris, federal criminal case.
Not the woman whose birthday would eventually become a national day of awareness.
Just Hanna.
A young mother beside her baby.
This is the Hanna I want us to meet before we ask the reader to learn how the world lost her.
Somewhere inside those twenty-one years were ordinary things that do not make their way into court documents.
There were people who knew her voice.
There were people who carried memories of her that belonged only to them.
There was a little boy who knew her as his mother.
Her mother, Malinda Limberhand, and her sister, Rose Harris, would spend years carrying Hanna’s name into rooms Hanna herself should have been able to enter.
The Day Hanna Went Missing
Hanna went missing on July 4, 2013, in Lame Deer, Montana.
Her family tried to get help.
And then they encountered something that has become painfully familiar in the stories of missing Indigenous women:
They had to fight to get someone to look for her.
The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center has documented the inadequate response Hanna’s family encountered. Her mother has written that the system was slow to respond and that Hanna’s family, friends, and community had to conduct the search themselves.
So Hanna’s family and community did what families should never have to do alone.
They searched for her themselves.
On July 8, Hanna’s body was found near the Lame Deer rodeo grounds.
She had been murdered.
She was twenty-one.
She was a mother.
And her family had been looking for her.
There Was Justice. But There Was Also Failure.
Eventually, two people were held criminally responsible.
Eugenia Ann Rowland pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced in federal court to 22 years in prison.
Garrett Wadda pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
Those convictions matter.
Accountability matters.
But conviction does not erase what happened during the days Hanna was missing.
It does not erase a family having to search for their own daughter, sister, and mother.
It does not give those days back.
And it certainly does not give Hanna back.
That is one reason her story cannot end with a sentencing hearing.
Because Hanna’s family did something extraordinary with a grief they never should have been asked to carry.
They kept speaking.
Her Mother Refused to Be Silent
Malinda Limberhand began organizing walks, speaking publicly, meeting with Montana’s congressional delegation, and demanding greater accountability when Native women disappear.
Hanna’s sister, Rose Harris, joined her.
Rose has participated in search-and-rescue efforts and helped organize marches and awareness events.
Their advocacy extended far beyond Hanna’s case.
And Hanna’s birthday became part of a national movement.
May 5 was Hanna’s birthday.
In 2017, the United States Senate designated May 5 as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. The movement for that recognition grew from the organizing of Hanna’s family and other Indigenous advocates demanding that missing and murdered Native women and girls no longer be ignored.
Every May 5, people across the country say the names of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
They wear red.
They gather.
They march.
They remember.
They demand answers.
But May 5 Was Hanna’s Birthday First
And this is where I want to be careful.
Because even something as meaningful as a national day of awareness can begin to turn Hanna into a symbol.
And I promised I would not do that.
Before May 5 became a day printed on advocacy calendars, it belonged to a girl named Hanna.
It was the day her mother remembered giving birth to her.
It marked another year of Hanna becoming herself.
Later, it might have meant birthday candles.
Her son handing her a badly wrapped present.
Another year older.
We cannot know what Hanna’s future would have held.
And we should not pretend that we can.
But we can remember that May 5 belonged to Hanna before it belonged to a movement.
Her Name Was Hanna Harris
I want us to remember the young woman before the case.
Not a body found near a rodeo ground.
Not a federal case number.
Not a statistic used to explain a national crisis.
A daughter.
A sister.
A young mother.
Hanna should be older now.
Her son should have his mother.
Malinda should have her daughter.
Rose should have her sister.
Nothing about the awareness created in Hanna’s name makes those losses acceptable.
But perhaps remembering her properly asks something of us.
When an Indigenous woman disappears, believe that her absence matters immediately.
Search.
Listen to her family.
Say her name.
Demand that the systems responsible for protecting her do their jobs.
And never allow the circumstances of her disappearance or death to become more important than the fact that she lived.
Her name was Hanna Harris.
She was twenty-one years old.
She was Northern Cheyenne.
She was a daughter.
She was a sister.
She was a mother.
And long before May 5 became a national day of awareness—
it was Hanna’s birthday.
For Hanna.
May her name be spoken for the life she lived, not only for the way it ended.
Sources & Further Reading
National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center — writings and advocacy from Malinda Limberhand and the Harris family concerning Hanna Harris and the May 5 National Day of Awareness.
Hanna Harris obituary — family remembrance of Hanna’s childhood, education, culture, family relationships, and motherhood.
United States Department of Justice, District of Montana — federal sentencing record concerning the prosecution of Eugenia Ann Rowland and Garrett Wadda.