Failure to serve, protect: Victims recount rape, murder and how tribal cops failed them

Some on the Nez Perce Reservation, including former law-enforcement employees, believe investigators’ failures to listen to the women who reported Travis Ellenwood’s alleged abuse allowed his violence to become deadly. 

Several women, including a former tribal cop, said Nez Perce police didn't respond effectively to multiple reports of violence against a man who went on to murder his girlfriend. 

Kenton Beckstead said dysfunction in the Nez Perce tribal law enforcement came to a head when a 28-year-old tribal citizen named Bessie Blackeagle was murdered by her boyfriend. 

Five former employees of the tribal justice system – including the system's former head – told Lee Enterprises that department administrators failed to enforce the law adequately or fairly on the reservation. 

After nearly killing his brother, Zachary Holt spent less than a year in tribal jail. Soon after, he went on a crime spree that ended with two dead.