2010s: POWER OF PRAYER? Missing tribal member calls for help following vigils across the reservation

Joanne Signor and her granddaughter Steffi hold a candlelight to a missing person's flyer.

INCHELIUM—Eleven days after a 13-year-old tribal member ran away from her Airway Heights residence, she has been returned home.

Within an hour of a candellight vigil held Tuesday, Laila Signor-Tonasket phoned her brother, whispering from a Tacoma hotel room, family members said. They called the police and she was brought back Wednesday.

“The power of prayer really works because our little girl is no longer lost,” Laila’s grandmother Trudi Tonasket told the Tribune Wednesday morning.

Family feared for the worst during Tuesday night’s emotional gathering saw more than 50 community members gather at a softball field in Inchelium, while other communities including Omak, Usk, Spokane and Penticton, British Columbia partook from afar.

“At this point I just want her back alive. I know she’s going to be broken, but I can deal with that,” Kristi McDowell, Laila’s mother, said. “She would never go that long without talking with her grandfather. I’ve heard so many different stories, but it all comes down to she was taken by two guys.”

McDowell recalled her daughter’s erratic behavior the night she left home, Aug. 12. “She was crying and crying. We asked her ‘What’s wrong?’ but she wouldn’t tell us. In the morning, my daughter went outside to play and said ‘Someone threw something in our yard.’ It was Laila’s clothes. She must have been in a hurry.”

Her daughters missed their older sister during the time of question. “My daughter Boo-boo (Aaliya), the other morning, I woke her up and said I love you and she said, ‘You need to worry about Laila’ and she started crying. It’s hard because they don’t understand but they kind of do.’ It’s hard not being home in Airway Heights but I had to come home (to Inchelium). This is where my strength is.”

The Airway Heights police department, FBI and Colville tribal police were involved in the investigation, McDowell said. She also had her daughter, who has run away previously, listed in the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. Tribal members Bunny Flett and Shelly Boyd led efforts to raise awareness during the time she was missing.