REMEMBERING: Owachige Osceola (8 of Diamonds, Oklahoma)
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What happened to Owachige Osceola?
Hi, everyone. This is an off week for the deck, but I'm popping in your feeds anyway because I want to bring your attention back to a case that we covered a few years ago on this show. Awachige Asiola. Some of you will remember her case because we did a letter writing campaign to urge the Oklahoma Emmy to change Awachige's cause of death from undetermined to homicide. And a lot of you took action. But I'm sad to report that all these years later, despite clear evidence of murder, Awachige's death still isn't classified as a homicide. And it's standing in the way of getting answers in her case. The other reason I want to highlight her story is because earlier this month, the Oklahoma governor vetoed a bill that allowed the state to help fund solving missing and murdered indigenous persons' cases. According to reporting in the Oklahoma newspaper, the governor said that he couldn't back the bill because, quote, justice must be blind to race.
The announcement was issued on May 5th, which is a national day of awareness for the MMIP crisis. The detective overseeing Awachigi's case made us aware of this because he is in the process of trying to get the Bureau of Indian Affairs on board to help with her case. And he fears that due to the governor's veto, that might not be realistic anymore. So please, listen to Awachigi's story, which we originally aired in May 2022. And if you feel inclined, it is not too late to take action. Our card this week is Awachigi Asiola, the Eight of Diamonds from Oklahoma. Even though Awachigi called for help on the morning her killer broke in, what actually happened inside her apartment is still a mystery.
And while evidence supports police's theory about who killed her, one huge hurdle still stands in the way of justice. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. On September 25th, 2013, Toni Brown was hanging out at home in Anadarko, Oklahoma, when she saw a Facebook status from her friend Awachiki. It had been posted earlier that morning and read, quote, Moose is trying to KM. Toni knew Awachiki was dating a guy named Moose, but she wasn't sure what KM meant. Just then, Toni's phone alerted her to a text from Awachiki that said the exact same thing as her Facebook status. Moose is trying to K.M. Awachiki wasn't answering any calls or texts, and Toni was freaked out, so she rounded up three of their friends to go check on her.
The group made the roughly hour-long drive from Anadarko to Awachiki's apartment in Norman, Oklahoma. And when they pulled up, their feelings of unease only grew. They saw that the door was slightly open from having been kicked in. They could tell because there was a shoe print on the door and the frame was splintered. So Tony and the group didn't even go in. They called police instead. As soon as Norman police officers got inside, they saw cabinets and drawers left open and stuff everywhere. But when they called out to see if anyone was home, no one answered. It was in an upstairs bedroom that police found Awachigi. She was laying on the floor, face down, with her sheets and comforter tossed over her head.
They checked for signs of life, but she had clearly been dead for a while, though it wasn't entirely clear how she had died because there were no visible wounds. In her room, the bed looked as if someone stripped it in a hurry. The mattress was bare except for three pillows, one of which had blood on it. And there were clothes and stuff tossed all around the room. In fact, the rest of the house was a mess as well. It looked as if the living room, kitchen, and bedroom had all been ransacked. They found another bloody pillow stuffed in a dresser in the bedroom. But when they went searching for Awatagee's cell phone and stuff like her cash and cards, they couldn't find any of that in the apartment.
So they were obviously wondering if someone had robbed the place. Officers secured the scene and went outside to tell Awachiki's friends what they'd found. But it was what they didn't find that concerned Toni and her friends the most because police didn't mention anything about finding anyone else in the home. And Toni knew that Awachiki lived with her five-year-old daughter.
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