Episode Four Of "Stolen: The Search For Jermain": A Very Candid VLOG

	In the fourth episode of “Stolen: The Search for Jermain” podcast host Connie Walker unearths a very candid YouTube vlog Jermain kept shortly before her disappearance, and more details on her relationship with then-boyfriend, Michael.  In the episode, we learn that as a child, Jermain witnessed domestic abuse against her mother, which leads Connie to reveal a similar experience she had as a child growing up in an Indigenous household.   It is this type of deep-rooted trauma young Indigenous women face that perpetuates the violence against them later in life. As an Indigenous journalist, it is a cycle Connie Walker hopes to break by amplifying stories like Jermain’s. “Stolen: The Search for Jermain” is a new true-crime podcast from Gimlet/Spotify that premiered March 1.   “Stolen: The Search for Jermain” focuses on the case of a missing Indigenous woman, Jermain Charlo, in Montana, who was out one evening at a bar in Missoula and never made it home. Over the course of eight episodes, journalist Connie Walker is on the ground in real time tracking down leads through the dense mountains of the Flathead Reservation, all while examining what it means to be an Indigenous woman in America, as Jermain was. Walker reports on how Indigenous women face some of the highest rates of violence in the U.S. as she dives deeper into the disappearance of young Indigenous mother, Jermain Charlo, in Montana.  According to U.S. crime statistics, Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic. One in three Native women is sexually assaulted during her life, and 67 percent of these assaults are perpetrated by non-Natives. Currently, the federal laws surrounding violent crimes create difficulties in dealing with non-Native perpetrators on native lands.  Walker, who is Cree from Okanese First Nation in Canada, has made it her life’s work as a journalist to tell the stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women. “Stolen: The Search for Jermain,” marks not only her first story with Gimlet Media but also the first U.S. case of a missing Indigenous woman that she’s investigated.    The podcast, “Stolen: The Search for Jermain,” is the first release since her acclaimed series “Missing and Murdered.” As an Indigenous woman herself -- Cree from Okanese First Nation in Canada -- Connie hopes this podcast amplifies this epidemic of violence against Indigenous women that’s gone uncovered by the mainstream media for far too long.    Source: Yurie Kwon   by Frank Racioppi