Episode Three Of "Stolen: The Search For Jermain" Reveals Police Investigation That Doesn't Add Up

 Since the “Stolen: The Search for Jermain” podcast debuted a few weeks ago, host and journalist Connie Walker has introduced listeners to the case of Jermain Charlo and sonically taken listeners to the Flathead Reservation in Montana to meet people close to Jermain and those working on her case. 

In the first two episodes, the podcast highlighted the violence Indigenous women, like Jermain, face in the U.S. -- some of the highest rates in the country -- and how sex trafficking in Indigenous communities is rampant all over the country. 

In the just-released third episode, Connie learns of the man Jermain was last seen with before her disappearance after exiting the Badlander Bar in downtown Missoula. After speaking with Jermain’s boyfriend at the time and a bouncer from the bar, Connie discovers certain aspects from the police investigation that don’t add up.

 You can listen to Episode 3 HERE.

 “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, 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: Adrianna Paidas

 

by

Frank Racioppi