Going West: True Crime - Sarah Saganitso // 358

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

In June of 1987, a 40-year-old Navajo woman left to work a night shift at an Arizona medical center, and never returned home. When her body was found nearby the next day, it was clear she had been murdered. But after a potentially coerced confession, and talks of a native legend being to blame, who was really responsible for her slaying? This is the story of Sarah Saganitso. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Arizona Daily News: https://www.newspapers.com/image/516639435/?terms=Sarah%20Saganitso&match=1 2. Arizona Daily Sun: https://www.newspapers.com/image/516638192/?terms=%22Sarah%20Saganitso%22&match=1 3. Truth of Skinwalkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKg1pYvhIYw 4. Navajo Traditional Teachings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC6ImkQLohE 5. Beyond Skinwalker Ranch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYccS3r95GU 6. Arizona Daily Sun: https://www.newspapers.com/image/515996758/?terms=%22Sarah%20Saganitso%22&match=1 7. Arizona Republic: https://www.newspapers.com/image/121028439/ 8. The Skeptical Juror: http://www.skepticaljuror.com/2010_09_22_archive.html 9. Arizona Daily Sun: https://www.newspapers.com/image/516327855/?terms=%22Sarah%20Saganitso%22&match=1 10. Atlas Obscura: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/skinwalker-cryptid-ocker 11. Arizona Daily Sun: https://www.newspapers.com/image/516639130/?terms=george%20abney%20guillermo%20vasquez&match=1 12. The Sacramento Bee: https://www.newspapers.com/image/624999114/?terms=%22Sarah%20Saganitso%22&match=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Teeve. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. This I guess is our Thanksgiving episode because our next one isn't going to come on to Friday So happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate. Happy Thanksgiving. Yes, everybody. I hope you fill up on turkey and all the good stuff and you feel fat and sassy And if you're not doing anything with family We hope that we can keep you company today with this case. It is a Navajo case out of Arizona Thank you so much to Remi for sending this case over because I can't believe I didn't hear about it before. I feel like I say that a lot, but this one is really, really wild. Yes, it's an extremely tragic case and the details will absolutely shock you.

We're gonna say this in the episode, but I want to say it now too. There is not a photo of Sarah on the internet at all. Like, we searched and searched and I even went to see if anybody else who has Covered this case has ever posted a photo of her and nobody else has so it seems like nobody has been able to find a Photo of her which is horrible and that has never happened even once on going west So I just wanted to say that we're probably gonna post some photos of the Suspect in the case and other things, but I just want to put that out there. There's not a photo of this woman,

which is so horrible and unfortunate, but yeah. So if you do want to see some of the photos from this case and photos from other cases, follow us on social media. We're on Instagram at Going West Podcast, Twitter at Going West Pod, and we're also on Facebook. All right guys, without further ado, this is episode 358 of Going West, so let's get into it! In June of 1987, a 40-year-old Navajo woman left to work a night shift at an Arizona Medical Center and never returned home.

When her body was found nearby the next day, it was clear that she had been murdered. But after a potentially coerced confession and talks of a native legend being to blame, who was really responsible for her slaying? This is the story of Sarah Sagonito. Sarah Sagonito was one of 15 children born into her family on a reservation in tuba city Arizona in the late 1940s and tuba city is about an hour and a half north of Flagstaff and just east of the Grand Canyon. She and her family are members of the Navajo Nation, also known as the largest tribe of Native Americans in the United States. Sadly, there is virtually no imprint of her life and legacy outside of the, you know, curious circumstances of her gruesome

murder, like I said in the intro, there literally isn't even a photo of her out there, but it is known that she came from an extremely large family who was well known in the native community. In her 20s, Sarah moved to the much larger city of Flagstaff and began working for the Housekeeping Department of the Flagstaff Medical Center, where she would remain for 17 years until her death. At 36, she gave birth to a son named Elvin, though her son's father has not been named publicly and we're going to talk about that a little bit later as well. But it seems like they were not together as Sarah and Elvin lived alone in a Flagstaff trailer park.

Sarah was quiet and kept to herself, but was a dutiful and responsible employee, and according to a co-worker was, quote, well-liked by the people she worked with. In the summer of 1987, 40-year-old Sarah was training to take over the evening shift at the Medical Center, which took place from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. After spending her entire career working during the day, Sarah was moved to Knights and had just completed her retraining. So June 12, 1987, was her first shift in this new role.

A coworker last saw Sarah at 10.55 pm, so five minutes before she was due to clock out of work and had home. Now, when Sarah didn't return home the next morning, the morning of Saturday, June 13th, 1987, her family became concerned and called the medical center where she worked to check in. But puzzled, her co-workers claimed that they hadn't seen her since the night prior, and assumed that she had finished up her

shift and that she had gone home. A quick scan of the parking lot revealed Sarah's pickup truck, still in the same spot where she had parked it the previous afternoon. So even more concerned now, her family reported her missing and headed to the Flagstaff Medical Center to conduct a preliminary search of the grounds, just hoping to find any sign of her. Yeah, especially because now this is the next day, she was supposed to get off at 11 the night before

and then she would have just driven right home. So this is really weird. Yeah. And you know, just the fact that the car is still parked there and she can't be found, that makes this whole situation so much more eerie. So there at the medical center, a search party consisting of both her co-workers and members of her family came upon Sarah's mutilated deceased body still on the grounds of the medical center. Just 300 feet from the parking lot, an Iraqi crevice leading into a wooded area just off of

the property of the hospital, facing West, lay Sarah's crumpled naked body. Investigators believe that she was killed right around the time that her shift ended. Her clothing, glasses, purse, and any money, identification, or banking cards that she had with her at the time, even her hearing aid were taken and have never been recovered. And sadly, her face was so badly beaten that it rendered her virtually unrecognizable, and her torso had sustained stab wounds, but Sarah's ultimate cause of death was this fixation. Eerily, place to top her throat was a small bundle of sticks that looked as if they were in the pattern of a cross.

And although this may have just been the act of a careless attacker, maybe throwing debris over his victim, many saw this as a message from her murderer. But that wasn't the only strange finding, because there was also animal hair found in her mouth, as well as in her wounds. Those Sarah was not found near her pickup truck, investigators did recover a clump of roots and dirt that was believed to have been yanked from a local graveyard, which was another sign to the community that this may have been a murder motivated by ritual. But the most shocking detail of Sarah's death was that her left breast appeared to have been

bitten off. And this apparently happened after she was already killed. Now, tests couldn't confirm or deny that she was sexually assaulted, but it was possible given the fact that she was found in the nude. According to one publication, Sarah did have a boyfriend at the time, but the investigation really steered clear of him for the most part, and no information has been made public about him because he was able to provide an airtight alibi that proved that he was out of town at the time of her death. When those in the Navajo community began hearing the shocking and just strange details of Sarah's death, rumors really began to swirl that it had been a ritualistic

murder as the crime scene made it appear. Sarah's workplace was undergoing changes at this time, including the shifting of many long-time employees to evening hours, which is exactly why Sarah had been switched to the night shift after almost two decades of working during the day. And one fellow employee of Sarah's Francine Foster later accused their manager, Dale Fowler, of trying to phase out the employees at the Medical Center who belonged to the Navajo Nation. After claiming that she and the other Navajo employees were being encouraged to quit, Francine was finally let go from the Flagstaff Medical Center in November, five months after Sarah's murder.

So, in response, Francine filed a lawsuit against the hospital, while a number of minority employees at the hospital join Francine in leveling charges of racism against the Medical Center's administration after Sarah's slang. The lawsuit alleges that, Dale, the hospital's director of housekeeping, moved the Navajo employees to the evening shift against their will, and increased their workload to impossible proportions until they were forced to quit out of frustration. Francine also claims that she and the other Navajo tribe members, whose second language

was English, were taken advantage of by Dale because he was prioritizing employees who spoke English as their first language. English, were taken advantage of by Dale because he was prioritizing employees who spoke English as their first language. So could Sarah have been the victim of a hostile workplace, or similar to Francine, could she have been embroiled in conflict with Dale? Now while this is possible, it seems unlikely that this work dispute had gotten severe enough to warrant a murder. But what is plausible is a racist

and anti-navajo statement being made by such a public and brutal slaying of a native woman. Though there's not necessarily any evidence to justify this theory, it's definitely possible with the ever-present threat of violence against native women. While her co-workers continued to wade through the unjust treatment that they were facing at work, as well as fighting to keep Sarah's legacy alive, a trust fund was established at the hospital for her son. As is usually the case with a crime of such a brutal nature,

police looked at those closest to her, you know, her family members, any ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands, and while Sarah's son, Elvin's father's identity, was not released publicly, it seems possible that a dispute over custody or possibly domestic dispute could have been to blame for Sarah's murder. Another ex-boyfriend of Sarah's was questioned, but a lack of evidence kept him from ever

being formally connected to the crime, even though many felt that his involvement felt the most likely. So let's talk about that. Twelve years prior to Sarah's death, she was dating and living with a man named Frank Nocki-Dena, who's a Navajo man 13 years her senior, who worked at the Native American Church. Multiple members of Sarah's family recall hearing from her

that Frank had been emotionally manipulative, and would frequently threaten her, including multiple incidents where he said that he was going to kill her. The couple had one fight where he abandoned her outside naked in the snow on a freezing desert night because she refused to loan him money. Sarah's sister Rosemary also testified that she and Sarah had a conversation mere days before her death concerning Sarah's fear that she was being followed. That same week Sarah also visited a counselor and told them that there was a man that she was fearful of, though sadly she did not name the man in her explanation to the counselor.

As she said to Rosemary, she explained to the counselor that she was being stalked and followed by this man. So when asking Frank about his whereabouts on the day of Sarah's murder, wondering if this man following her was him, Frank claimed that he had attended a sweat-lodge ceremony in Sarah's hometown of Tubercity, Arizona, so 80 miles or 128 kilometers north of Flagstaff where Sarah was killed. Frank claimed that he attended with multiple members of his family, including his wife and his mother, and that he left his home in the afternoon and returned home around 1.30

a.m. So you know, hours after Sarah would have been killed. His brother corroborated this claim, saying that they had been together that evening, which he emphasized was the evening of Sarah's death. Frank also claimed that he hadn't seen Sarah in about a year and a half, having last spotted her while out on a walk with her son.

Frank summed up their relationship by saying, quote, I used to live with her, but then she got mad, and then I just walked out, take all my clothes, then just walk out. But when police attempted to verify his alibi, Bill King, who was the Navajo medicine man who facilitated the sweat lodge that Frank claimed to have attended that night, claimed that Frank had not been in attendance. Frank was also known to use Péodie, which is a hallucinogenic drug, and investigators wondered if perhaps the drug could have encouraged Frank's erratic and even violent behavior. But even though Frank seemed like a very likely suspect, another suspect emerged in the

months following Sarah's murder, and this suspect placed himself at the murder scene, seeming to exonerate Frank completely. But was he really responsible? Or had he made up his entire account of the murder due to his vivid dreams, religious beliefs, and guilty conscience? 35-year-old George Abney attended Northern Arizona University, pursuing a master's degree in English, and was then hired on to teach a freshman year English class. Though it's not clear exactly why he left, he was no longer teaching there at the time

of Sarah's murder and had taken a job working at a local remodeling that summer. Now, a strange series of circumstances connected George to the murder of Sarah Saginito. Deeply connected to his Protestant faith, George often had vivid dreams that he felt were either prophetic or possibly memories from someone else, which were being shown to him by God. And two months after Sarah's horrific murder, with no suspects to speak of, George remembered having a nightmare shortly before Sarah was killed that he felt may have been a premonition. In his dream, a man named Miguel Diaz killed a Mexican woman on a hillside.

So wondering if perhaps he had predicted the crime, George told his pastor Floyd Patterson about this dream. So Reverend Patterson thought that maybe this information could be of note to law enforcement and reported what George had told him to flagstaff police officer Jerry Blair. Now Jerry brought George in for questioning after hearing this, and posed the theory that Miguel Diaz, the murderer in George's dream, was an iteration of George's most evil ideations. Though George seemed doubtful at first, he also admitted in his interrogation that he had been repeatedly molested by an uncle as a child, and said that he would often be reduced to this zombie-like state when he faced stress and anxiety due to this abuse.

So if he had been experiencing one of those phases on the evening of Sarah's death, Jerry posited that George was capable of killing someone without realizing it, and said that the dream George had about Miguel Diaz was likely a memory and not a premonition. George was questioned for nine and a half hours, all of which were recorded on videotape. And the turning point in the interrogation came when officers told George that the impression of what was believed to be a bite mark on Sarah's left breast matched George's dental impressions. So with that, George seemed to start to believe what they were telling him that he had done. So resigned, George told police, quote, In the coming hours of the interrogation, police were able to coax even more information

out of George, and eventually he started recalling what he thought were details of the killing. However, these memories were filled with contradictions and aspects of the murder that were simply just not true. George claimed that Sarah had been dressed in traditional Native American clothing, recalling her wearing raw hide and tassels. But Sarah, fresh off of her work shift, would have been wearing her housekeeping uniform. George also made eight incorrect guesses about Sarah's cause of death, and was never able to identify exactly

how she died, which again was strangulation. Ah, it's just such a mess. Yeah, it's such a mess. Like, he doesn't know shit. He doesn't know anything. So at certain points in the interrogation, he mues that she had been stabbed, bludgeoned with a liquor bottle, and even disemboweled. He also asked, quote, did I scalp her and said, quote, I think I broke her neck,

which neither of those things are true. As told by George, the sequence of events on the evening of June 12th, 1987, is as follows. He had gone to Flagstaff Medical Center to seek treatment for depression, though why he would have been reporting there so late in the day was not addressed. though why he would have been reporting there so late in the day was not addressed. Since a coworker had seen Sarah there at 10.55 pm that day, her murder couldn't have been earlier than that. Then, George apparently said that he had been upset when he was turned away for treatment that night, and this is when he supposedly crossed paths with Sarah, who offered to drive him to the liquor store or a bar, and drink with him for a while until he felt better.

They did, and when Sarah drove them back to the hospital so that George could retrieve his car, Sarah apparently initiated some sort of physical contact which made George uncomfortable. He then claimed that when he refused her advances, she became angry and hit him. And so with that, George became so enraged that he blacked out and he killed her, though he didn't remember doing so. And then when he came to, he was standing over her dead body. In his own words, quote, I was just trying to get her to stop. It's just so hard to believe, it just feels like he's trying to say what the police want

him to say. And it's like, why? Yeah, it's just a wacky, wacky story that he's coming up with. Well, George also claimed to have stabbed her multiple times after her death, saying, quote, every wound I put on her body after she was dead, corresponded with the way I felt. He then explained that before fleeing the scene of the murder, he had re-entered the medical center to rinse the blood off of himself. However, there is no forensic evidence inside the medical center nor at the sight of Sarah's

body to support this claim, because detectives didn't recover any of George's blood, hair, fingerprints, or clothing fibers at or near the scene, which I feel like is huge. Oh yeah, zero physical evidence. Yeah, usually that is what does it for a person, and it's like he's clearly not, this is clearly not a true story that he's telling. He's clearly just telling you what you wanna hear

and trying to guess what happened, and there's no physical evidence. So what are we still doing here? Yeah, as to why he's doing this, I have absolutely no fucking idea. Well, while detained for the murder anyway, George agreed to a dental examination to match the bite marks in Sarah's left breast, with his own teeth. Police told him in his interrogation that his teeth had already been matched to the imprint found on Sarah, like Heath said, but this was not an official conclusion.

The dental expert did say that the two were consistent, but also requested a further examination and more information, which is a fact that George was not privy to. Instead, police reported this finding to George and his legal team, and George began to believe that he really had committed the crime, all because they're like making him feel like he did. But still, there were many aspects of his account of the murder that just did not ring true. There was no evidence tying George to the Flagstaff Medical Center that night, and no report of him checking in or attempting

to seek medical attention. Also, no local bar or liquor store had spotted either Sarah or George coming in or going that night. In his videotaped confession, George said, quote, I had a lot of energy and tension built up and it just got out of hand. After telling the police about his alleged premonition,

George said quote, it was a dream and I had no direct control over it. But it's also really weird that he told his reverend that he had a dream about a woman, a Mexican woman being murdered, and somehow they connect that to this Native American woman being murdered, and then they say that he did it because of this dream.

Yeah. What the hell? Yeah, it's kind of a mind-fuck at this point, and I feel like there's a lot of things going on with George, maybe some mental health crisis situations going on, and police are just mental health crisis situations going on. And police are just kind of taking advantage of that. They're like, while he's telling us everything that we want to know,

but it's like after he guesses. Yeah, after he guessed multiple times. Yeah, but Flagstaff police just clearly wanted someone behind bars for this brutal murder. So they accepted his story regardless of the obvious doubt that they were even connected. So on September 1st, 1987, George Abney was arrested for the murder of Sarah Saganezo, and was held without bond in the Coconino County jail. Now the reactions to George's arrest were basically split. Some who knew him claim that they truly believed that he was capable

of what he was being accused of, and that they had found him to be unnerving in the past. A co-worker of his at the Ramada Inn where he worked said, quote, he did seem unusual to me, but I never suspected that he'd do something like that. George was frequently described as socially inept but harmless. A former student of his recalled him being odd and said that he was, quote, a fairly good teacher, but he told strange stories about his childhood during class. At the time of George's arrest, the police sergeant declined to comment on the details of the case, but claimed that there were no other suspects at the time, and that police did believe that he was responsible. Another acquaintance of George did believe that he was responsible.

Another acquaintance of George's claim that he had been obsessed with Sarah's murder and its aftermath, and that he wouldn't stop talking about it prior to his arrest. However, there was no link between Sarah and George, nor was there any discernible motive. Potentially due in part to his belief that his dreams were divinatory, George seemed to be weighed down by a guilty conscience. He even wrote in a letter to a friend that he was worried that he had been in and out of consciousness, and had killed in the past but was unaware of it. But after George's arrest, two of his friends came forward, claiming to be his alibi, though

the police were not convinced. And at this point it just seems like it doesn't really matter what anybody else says, the police just kind of think that they got their guy. Yeah, and they're just gonna go with it. And they don't care. Yeah, so these local men, Guillermo Vasquez and George Bellows, claimed to be able to offer an alibi for George Abney, saying that they had both been with him on the night of Sarah's murder.

Guillermo had stopped by the Flamingo Hotel where George Abney's roommate George Bellos worked. George Abney stopped by later that evening as well, chatting with the two men for a while, and Guillermo claims that he had actually even spent the night at the home of the two men after they had talked until the early morning hours. He told police that they rose early and that he and George Abney had gone out to breakfast in the morning before he took off on a road trip to California. Guillermo couldn't remember exactly when George Abney arrived at the Flamingo Hotel that night, but placed him there around 11.30 pm.

So just about 30 minutes after Sarah was last seen alive at the medical center. The motel was located on the other side of the city, so if the men were correct in their statements, George did have an airtight alibi. He would not have been able to kill Sarah and make it all the way over to the Flamingo Hotel by 1130. However, Guillermo was barred from testifying on behalf of George Abney because there had been discrepancies in the various accounts that he gave the police, and the defense team was concerned that, you know, maybe the prosecutors would find him to be like an unreliable witness. But Guillermo maintained that while he may not have recalled every detail, he knew for sure that the date that he had last seen George Abney was the night of Sarah's death, because

it was the night before he left Flagstaff bound for San Diego. Basically he had tickets to see a concert on June 14th, the day after he arrived to California, so he knew his visit with George Abney had to have been on the evening of June 12th. But deciding to further manipulate their witnesses, police apparently told Guillermo that he was lying about being George's alibi because George had already confessed to the crime. But Guillermo, along with many others, believed that it had been a coerce confession, so he stuck to his story despite not being allowed to testify at the trial, which began on July 19, 1988.

The defense team, which was made up of attorney's Bruce Griffin and Donald Bales, alleged that George's deeply religious background was used against him, and that police had influenced Reverend Patterson to convince George to make a confession. They revealed that George had even asked to speak with Reverend Patterson during his lengthy interrogation, and that he wanted to be counseled on whether or not to confess to Sarah's murder. George was apparently also promised that he would receive psychiatric treatment in a hospital instead of receiving jail time if he were to confess.

At George's trial, multiple forensic odontologists, as well as forensic pathologists, weighed in on the theory that the bite mark found on Sarah matched George's dental records. The experts agreed that the marks on Sarah's body were not made from teeth at all, but were more likely jagged marks from a serrated knife. That's a big difference. Yeah, huge difference. And we have to remember that police told George that the bite mark matched his teeth and now other people are saying that it's not even teeth.

Yeah. During his time in prison, George met with a minister from the Flagstaff mission to the Navajos, who had spent time counseling Sarah's family through their grief, as well as talking George through his confusion at the fate that had been falling him. And this reverend, Dave Patterson, who had no relation to Reverend Floyd Patterson, who George had confided his nightmare to, wrote of George quote, �George Abney was a victim of confusion and his own weakness of being extremely vulnerable to strong persuasion.

He lacked self-confidence at a time when he severely needed it. Also he was confronted with claims of evidence, which supposedly implicated him. These claims could not be adequately upheld during his trial. He did tell some of us, including the police, certain things which made it appear that he could have been involved in the murder situation. The tragedy of this case is that the police were so sure that they had their man, that they failed to recognize

that he really could not remember the actual murder. He was remembering a dream, and in response to their questioning, began to develop a story of how he could have been involved. I'm thankful that, through counseling and much prayer, I've had a part in helping George be delivered from his confused condition. George's friends said that he was not the type of person who could possibly commit such a crime. Many of these friends testified in court that George is kind, intelligent, and a real gentleman.

And just aside from that, like aside from him being a nice guy, okay great, but everything that this Reverend is saying is true, like I completely agree that he was coerced and that he's not actually behind this crime at all. Yeah, I don't believe that George is responsible here. But the defense had another very interesting theory up their sleeves as to why George was not the one to commit this crime himself. So they posed the idea that it was possible that the murder was committed by a Navajo legend. And before I say the legend's name,

I just want to say that we want to approach this part of the episode with the utmost respect, because this is a legend that is heavily discussed in Navajo communities. It's told to children, it's discussed in families a lot. And even saying its name is not something that you should really do. It's not something you're supposed to really do. I was doing a lot of research on it

of trying to make sure that we discuss this portion properly. And so we are going to say its name for the sake of needing to talk about it, but I just wanted to say that. So this legend is Yenau Luxi, most commonly known as a skin walker. Now, using this justification, George's defense team claimed, quote,

the marks left on the victim's body suggest that the killing was ritualistic, that a practitioner of witchcraft may have been responsible. And there were several details about Sarah's murder that led them to this conclusion. So the bite mark found on Sarah was left in the shape of a crescent moon, which is believed to be one of the calling cards of a skin walker. There were also the roots and dirt found by Sarah's car that were supposedly pulled from a graveyard, which is a taunting reminder of her life being taken too soon.

And then there were the sticks found on top of her throat that appeared to be arranged there after her death, and the animal fur found in her mouth and wounds. So many people believe that these details seemed reminiscent of a ritual killing, and that Sarah had fallen victim to a skin walker. So what is this Navajo legend? Well, first of all, like I said, you know, the name, either of its names, should not be

spoken aloud according to my research. It apparently gives them power. Not trying to do that here. But Stanley Milford, who is a Navajo Ranger, explained quote, Yinab-Lushi is the animal walker, a beast that is part human, part animal, part spirit. They're shape shifters who have offered themselves to a demon and sacrifice someone in their family to the demon in order to gain the power to shape-shift. They are then taught how to appear as other creatures using the skins of animals to hunt for prey. They can run at incredibly fast speeds walking upright or running on all fours.

Witnesses who believe they've been in their presence have seen shadows moving, heard banging and screaming, and observed that they walk with the sound of hooves. It's been reported that they resemble a devil with red eyes and antlers, and according to Stanley Milford, these creatures have, quote, great knowledge of the dark side and exist, quote, between here and the next world. They pray on those who are easily manipulated and tricked, and Stanley also says quote, if you are weak in a spiritual way or an emotional way or an mental way, when those are combined, they can attack you.

Yinau-Dushi are a very sensitive and controversial topic among Navajo people, and many don't like to talk about them or describe their experiences with them, but many Navajo people have had run-ins with these creatures and believe them to be a very real threat. They're characterized by their ability to force others to do their evil deeds, manipulating them to harm others or themselves. So one might take the form of a human or animal, and force someone to kill themselves or murder someone else rather than carrying out the deed on their own. But was Sarah's murder really ritualistic or did someone just want it to look like it

was? Ultimately, the jury felt that there was far too much reasonable doubt to prove that George was guilty, and he was acquitted of this crime. However, their theory that this creature may be to blame for Sarah's death was not the reason for his exoneration. The defense team brought back the possibility that Frank, Sarah's ex-boyfriend, was involved, but sadly, due to lack of evidence, he was never formally pursued as a suspect. And Sarah's case has become famous for being the only criminal case in which a skinwalker

defense was used. The jury made it clear, however, that this did not have any bearing on their ruling. While they respected the Navajo legend and the possibility that it was involved in Sarasan timely death, they made it clear that it did not come up in deliberations about whether or not to convict George Abney for the heinous crime. Graciously, Saras family believed George Abney to be innocent and were thankful that he was released. For years after Sarah's death, her sister Rosemary advocated for victims and their families and let a crusade against police coercion and false confessions. In 1990, she stated, quote,

During the course of our numerous interviews with the police department, my family and I were lied to about the key evidence. Had we not continued interviews with the defense attorney, the facts surrounding my sister's death would never have been revealed. Tragically, the murder of Sarah Saginizo remains unsolved. If you have any information about Sarah's murder, please call the Flagstaff Police Department at 928-213-2000. Or report it to the Coconino County Silent Witness on the Flagstaff Police Department's website at flagstaff.az.gov.

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. I just can't believe that after all this time, her case isn't solved that it went to trial and truly one of the craziest trials I've ever heard about, like with everything that came out and the fact that George was clearly in my mind, not behind the set-all, which is obviously why he was released. But I really do think that bringing up the Navajo legend was an interesting thing to do,

because this is going to, I don't mean this to sound disrespectful, but after hearing about her crime scene, it was like the first thing that came to my mind was like, this felt like it was done by like a beast or a werewolf. Like this doesn't sound like a real murder case that we're talking about. Yeah, it is really interesting to me that this was the only case in history where, you know, this legend was used as a defense,

but I hope that her family gets answers soon and I hope they still have all that physical evidence that can still be tested in this day and age. Absolutely, so please make sure that you guys share this episode, especially because it's unsolved. That's why Heath and I love covering unsolved cases, so hopefully, who knows, there can be resolution one day. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate.

We give you guys a big holiday hug. We are so, so thankful for all of you, seriously, for making our dreams come true with this show and just showing up every week. We love you guys so much. Thank you. Yes, thank you guys so much. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world,

don't be a stranger. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% Thank you. you