Taylor Baldeagle wears a beaded necklace every day that belongs to his missing daughter Sharon Baldeagle.
"She travels with me, no matter where I go," the Eagle Butte resident said.
Sharon was 12 years old and living on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation when she was last seen on Sept. 18, 1984. She and a friend ran away and were picked by a man named Royal Russell Long, who tied them up and beat them in his Wyoming home. Sharon's friend was able to escape, but Sharon has never been found.
Taylor especially mourns for his missing daughter on her birthday — she turned 47 on June 25 — and on Father's Day, when she and her younger brother would make him breakfast.
"To me, she's still my little girl," said Taylor, a retired tribal judge.
It's unknown how many Native American women like Sharon have gone missing or been murdered in South Dakota over the years. But that's about to change.
