A couple devises a strategy to get their daughter's killer prosecuted and to get attention for other Native families. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Mika Westwolf was killed in a hit-and-run on a Montana highway. Her parents thought the driver might get away with it. The driver was white. Mika was a citizen of the Blackfeet Nation. (1 minute)Act One: Mika’s parents, Carissa Heavy Runner and Kevin Howard, share recordings of their interactions with law enforcement. (8 minutes)Act Two: Carissa and Kevin take matters into their own hands. (20 minutes)Act Three: The county prosecutor explains why he let Mika’s killer out of jail. Will Carissa and Kevin's efforts pay off? Sierra follows them to court. (33 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Chapter 1: Who was Micah Westwolf and what happened to her?
They were very strategic and did some extraordinary things other families had not tried to make sure Micah's case was one that the authorities could not ignore. That story and how it unfolded and what it's like to be a couple making that happen, that's going to be our whole show today. From WBEZ Chicago, Since American Life, I'm Ira Glass. And with that, I hand it over to Ciara.
Micah's family lives on the Flathead Indian Reservation. It's in a valley, surrounded by big, toothy mountains. Micah was 22 years old the night she was killed. She'd been out with her younger brother. They'd gone to a bar to buy cigarettes. On their way home, Micah couldn't find her phone and thought she'd left it at the bar. She told her brother to let her out of the car.
She'd go back to the bar to get it, and then she'd walk home. Hours later, around 4 a.m., a tribal police officer found her body on the side of the road, Highway 93. The officer, a friend of Kevin's, drove to his house and woke him up.
You know, they told us my kid was deceased. And then right away I was like, well, did you guys get him? And they were like, yeah, it was some tweaker from Butte. And in my mind, I was like, just like happy that they apprehend, you know. So and I just, you know, I gave the cops a hug and I was like, thank you guys or whatever. You know, I'm glad that you guys were there.
Later that day, Kevin and his wife, Carissa Heavy Runner, Micah's mother, took a cross and a teddy bear to the roadside where she'd been found. When they got there, investigators from Montana Highway Patrol were flying a drone, photographing the scene. One of them was named Wayne Bieber. He asked Kevin and Carissa if they had Micah's phone.
It had actually been in her brother's car that night, slipped between her seat and the console. Bieber said he needed it. Carissa couldn't understand why.
He was adamant about following us home to get it. And, you know, I repeated, she did not have her phone on her. It was in her brother's car. Why do you need it? What's it going to... you know, show or whatever. And then he said, we need to look at all aspects. I was torn, fought with myself, and I thought I was helping. And so I gave him the phone up here at our house.
When you're handing it to him, I was like, oh, Micah's just freaking just pissed off right now. Like she would not like this at all. And I like said that out loud. Shouldn't have done it, but in a joking manner, I guess. But I really did feel that way. Like Micah was like, no, no, don't give it to him.
Yeah, well, you tell me more about that.
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Chapter 2: Why did Micah's parents distrust the investigation?
He'd promised to call, but he never did. Carissa and Kevin started blowing up his phone. They called every day for a week. Nothing. Then a friend dialed him from her phone, a number he didn't recognize, and he picked up.
Can I ask who was calling again one more time?
Sorry about that. Carissa Heavy Runner, the mother of Micah Westwolf. You gave me your number when we were putting a cross on the side of the road and there was you and another trooper there?
Yep. So I haven't gotten, I've been, to be honest with you, I've been running around with my head cut off the last couple weeks trying to get caught up on a bunch of other stuff. Have you talked to anybody else as far as things go?
No, because I don't know who else to talk to.
I've had some other things coming up with work that I've been trying to get taken care of.
Bieber tells Carissa he's applied for some warrants and then keeps talking about how busy he is.
How come she's not in jail still?
So it's one of those things. She was put in jail. We still have to finish up with the rest of our investigation. And that includes waiting for toxicology stuff to come back along with trying to get everything in line that may be associated with evidence for that.
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Chapter 3: How have other Native families been affected by similar cases?
Chapter 4: What challenges do Native communities face with law enforcement?
That is why I'm saying review.
So Micah's toxicology, though, came back where she was impaired.
So these are things that take time.
Well, right. I guess my concern would be, like, that's kind of your justification for her not being currently... in jail would be Micah's potential intoxication.
The question that we come back to is exactly what I was telling you was if you are intoxicated and walking on the road.
But we don't know that, right?
The totality of the circumstances.
Kevin asks him if he's gathering any of the surveillance footage from the night Micah was killed, the footage they'd been working to preserve. Maybe this could tell them something, like if Sunny swerved, or if she stopped when she hit Micah, or sped up.
What would be that you're trying to look for?
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Chapter 5: What strategy did Carissa and Kevin develop to seek justice?
It makes for a very difficult relationship, though, because you never really agree on anything. So it's like she accepts that I'm wrong and I accept that she's wrong in our own minds, you know what I mean? And we're starting to learn that neither one of us are really wrong,
What's going through your head, Grisa? I just, oh no. I appreciate my husband so much for his truth and his fearlessness that he's just going to come out and say whatever. That's how we're a good team is that we are able to cover all sides of it.
Coming up, Sarah talks to the county prosecutor about what the hell with not charging and arresting Sonny White. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's show, how to tell a dumb American story. Sarah Crane Murdoch picks up where she left off.
The prosecutor for Lake County is James Lepotka. His jurisdiction is basically the entire Flathead Reservation. He's from Wisconsin, but has worked for Lake County for most of his career. He's white, in his early 40s, smiley. He looks like a Boy Scout. Micah's case had drawn more media attention than any other case he'd worked on because of Chris's organizing.
Let me try and dig this out. A hundred pages of comments from Facebook, articles from the New York Times. I got a text message from somebody who's not my friend on Facebook saying, you racist piece of shit, you will not try that stupid white supremacist bitch because she's white, you're garbage.
It was annoying, but the attention also got him more resources from the FBI and the state. He met with Chris and Kevin briefly a couple of times in the months after Micah died.
I tried to assure them, like, I'm not a white supremacist covering up a homicide for my white supremacist friend. Like, that's not what this is about. And I think I got some of that through to them, but I think that they were also, you know, a little righteously upset that we weren't moving faster.
He acknowledged that Montana Highway Patrol had made mistakes that slowed down the investigation. He had to let Sunny White out of jail because investigators hadn't collected enough evidence to charge her. He also needed Sunny's blood test results to prove she had been intoxicated. But orders at the Montana Crime Lab were backed up.
He told me he never found anything that proved Sunny hit Micah because she was Native. He couldn't verify the rumor that Sunny had come to the reservation to kill an Indian. so he couldn't charge her with a hate crime. I got the sense that he wanted to do a good job for Micah's family. The first time we met, I was struck by his genuine warmth whenever he talked about Micah.
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Chapter 6: How did public attention influence the case?
Really?
I can tell that just by looking through her phone.
What were some of the feelings, like, do you remember anything in particular that really endeared you to her?
Um, she did a lot of videos and a lot of pictures of her, a lot of selfies, and they were, um, rather innocent kind of like little kid, it made me like Micah a lot more.
It was sweet, but also it made me wonder. If he didn't have those photos of Micah, would he like her? Would he have felt as motivated to work on her case? He didn't talk this way about Bonnie and Trisha's kids, Maureen and Aiden. He called what happened to them tragic. But he also said he didn't think a jury would have much sympathy for them. He said they made choices that put themselves at risk.
Highway Patrol concluded that Aiden was lying in the road when he was hit. He'd sent text messages to friends suggesting he was suicidal. And someone reported Marina stumbling intoxicated just before she was killed. Lepaka told me he didn't see any way he could win at trial in either case.
But his explanations left out some key details, like the fact that the driver who killed Marina was intoxicated too, or that in Aiden's evidence file, the coroner said that Aiden's injuries indicated that he'd been standing when he got hit, not lying down. All of this was the sort of reasoning that caused so much agony for Trisha and Bonnie.
The feeling that law enforcement assumed their kids were responsible for their own deaths. Six months after Micah was killed, in October of 2023, Lepaka was finally close to filing charges against Sunny White. He invited Carissa and Kevin into his office to hear about the evidence he had compiled against her.
I was kind of excited. I'm like, hey guys, look, we did it. Look, I have all this stuff. This is what we've got. Let me show you the whole thing. And then this is the timeline and what to expect. That's how I felt that meeting was, what that meeting was for.
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Chapter 7: What reasons did the county prosecutor give for not charging the driver?
Chapter 8: What does this case reveal about systemic issues with prosecuting hit-and-run cases involving Native victims?
It was annoying, but the attention also got him more resources from the FBI and the state. He met with Chris and Kevin briefly a couple of times in the months after Micah died.
I tried to assure them, like, I'm not a white supremacist covering up a homicide for my white supremacist friend. Like, that's not what this is about. And I think I got some of that through to them, but I think that they were also, you know, a little righteously upset that we weren't moving faster.
He acknowledged that Montana Highway Patrol had made mistakes that slowed down the investigation. He had to let Sunny White out of jail because investigators hadn't collected enough evidence to charge her. He also needed Sunny's blood test results to prove she had been intoxicated. But orders at the Montana Crime Lab were backed up.
He told me he never found anything that proved Sunny hit Micah because she was Native. He couldn't verify the rumor that Sunny had come to the reservation to kill an Indian. so he couldn't charge her with a hate crime. I got the sense that he wanted to do a good job for Micah's family. The first time we met, I was struck by his genuine warmth whenever he talked about Micah.
She was a delightful kid.
Really?
I can tell that just by looking through her phone.
What were some of the feelings, like, do you remember anything in particular that really endeared you to her?
Um, she did a lot of videos and a lot of pictures of her, a lot of selfies, and they were, um, rather innocent kind of like little kid, it made me like Micah a lot more.
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