Law&Crime Sidebar - Hikers Found Teen’s Body Parts in Trash Bags

Episode Date: March 29, 2025

Three weeks after 14-year-old Emily Pike was reported missing in Arizona, her body was found cut up and dumped in trash bags near a hiking trail. Now members of the local Native American reservation are calling for an investigation into the group home where Pike had been living. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber spoke with Justin Shepherd from YouTube’s JustintheNickofCrime about the strange case.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I'll be doing good and yeah, just have a good resty date. Yeah, I love you and have a good day. A 14-year-old girl is reported missing in Arizona. And after 3,000, and after 3rd, three weeks of frantic searching, parts of her dismembered body were found in a wooded area 100 miles away from her home. Now, there are calls for investigation into the group home she was a part of as the teenager's case becomes a rallying cry for advocates for missing and murdered

indigenous women. Welcome to Cybar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. 14-year-old Emily Pike, a member of the San Carlos Patchie tribe in Arizona. was reported missing at the end of January, have apparently walked away from her group home. Now, law enforcement and Mesa say that Emily was a chronic runaway, having been located by police in at least three prior occasions after being reported missing from the home, according to police reports. On Valentine's Day, three weeks after she was last seen, the Gilly County Sheriff's Office says it got a call from some hikers who said they found trash bags on or near a trail in a forested area near Globe, Arizona. So this is off US 60 at mile post 277. And when they looked inside, they believed they saw body parts. The remains were later confirmed to be that of Emily, and they were taken for autopsy.

The sheriff's office and Mesa Police Department partnered with the FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs to launch a homicide investigation. Spokesperson for the Sheriff's Department said they've also been in contact and in touch with the San Carlos Apache Police Department. Emily's family was reportedly part of this tribe, according to ABC 15. And when Emily's body was discovered, the information was apparently leaked on Facebook before an official identification was made. In fact, the Gila County Sheriff's Office said in a statement on February 26th, unfortunately, the information on Facebook was intended for only law enforcement agencies and was leaked. GCSO detectives are currently working long hours to make a positive identification and find

any information and evidence. And I will say it's particularly chilling because many updates from local agencies have said most of Emily's dismembered remains were found, but further information hasn't been released on that. Now, despite weeks of investigations and multiple candlelight vigils and marches for awareness, this investigation really hasn't revealed many answers. Police told local reporters that they have some leads,

but no definitive suspects. They've set up a tip line or asking anybody who might have surveillance video showing Emily's movements to please contact them. The tribe is also offering a $75,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and a conviction. So clearly there's a lot to talk about here. And I want to bring on somebody who actually alerted me to the Emily Pike story. We're here with Justin Shepard from the YouTube channel, just in the nick of crime.

Thank you so much for taking the time and for bringing awareness to this case. Talk to us how you got involved in reporting and covering this case. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me. So we do a lot with missing people on my channels. And after the Gabby Petito case, I became friends with her family, Nikki and Jim Schmidt and Joe and Tara Petito. And this has been something that's been very important to them as bringing attention to the MMIW community, which is missing and murdered indigenous women, as well as people of color. Because what they discovered during their daughter's case was that there's whole missing white woman syndrome and they just didn't feel like that was okay.

So one of the things that they had done was gotten involved with different people involved in indigenous communities, including an attorney named Darlene Gomez, and they stay on top of this. So Jim had actually sent me this story, and literally there are very few stories with everything that I cover that leave my jaw on the floor, and this one was one of them. By the way, I got to say this. The content that we cover here on Sidebar proves you've got to be careful who you surround yourself with, who you let into your life. Do you really know? Well, that is why we've partnered with TruthFinder. TruthFinder is one of the largest public record search services in the United States. You type in a name and within minutes and a paid subscription purchase,

you can access unlimited reports about almost anyone that can include information like phone numbers, location history, criminal traffic records. You can also look up registered sex offenders in an area too. This is a service that can maybe provide you with some peace of mind. And right now, you can get 50% off your first month of confidential background reports. You just got to go to truthfinder.com slash LC sidebar. Hope you can check it out. it's absolutely brutal the violence is horrific but unfortunately this isn't too off brand for the

indigenous community this happens to them so much and so much of the time they don't receive justice but that's how it was brought to my attention why do we see that happens so much in that community there's a few different reasons i think the jurisdictional challenges are one of it because a lot of the criminal jurisdiction depends on whether or not the victim and offender are indigenous or non-indigenous which by the way most of the time in these cases. The victims are indigenous, but the perpetrators, the offenders, aren't. It also depends on where the crime occurred, tribal land versus state or federal jurisdiction and the type of offense committed. The thing is that the tribal lands don't have a lot of money

and resources to do proper investigations. A lot of people who would be police in tribal lands go to, you know, outside police departments because money is better. There really just isn't budget and funding. And so it's very easy to write these off. And because of this, oftentimes you don't have the FBI getting involved. You don't have local municipalities getting involved. And when they do, they don't really put that much effort towards it. And I think that that's one of the biggest challenges to this. And I think that a lot of people exploit these loopholes, the people who commit violence against these women and children, exploit these loopholes knowing that. I think that's a very fair assessment. I think that's a very scary conclusion. But that might actually

be what's happening here. You know, let's talk about Emily for a second, because I want to talk about this January 27th report to police that Emily was missing. So according to this police report, the manager for a group home that was run by sacred journey and called authorities. And it says, quote, Kathy indicated one of the clients left out of her bedroom window and is not returned. The window's screen was pushed out from inside. Kathy stated that she has ran away several times in the past. Kathy did not indicate any exigent circumstance. She was described as a 14-year-old native female approximately 4 feet 10 inches 115 pounds with medium length brown hair she does not have a cell phone she was last seen wearing a pink and gray shirt now the group

home manager reportedly gave police information about where emily had been found after running away before but that didn't work here officers didn't find her and the reason why emily was in the group home or how long she lived there is not entirely clear either a family would comment on it when asked by reporters. Now, NBC News reports that the tribe's social services department had placed Emily in the home, allegedly because of the San Carlos Youth Home on the San Carlos Reservation. That was full. The Sacred Journey Group Home reportedly has 10 beds. Now, Sacred Journey is not part of the Arizona Department of Child Safety System. However, DCS has opened a licensing inquiry into this home. A spokesperson for DCS sent ABC15 a statement

in an email that read in part. At this time, the department does not believe any action taken or not taken by the group home caused the terrible outcome in this case. We have opened a licensing inquiry to determine whether appropriate steps were taken by the group home during this incident. And also, according to NBC News, the group home alerts state agencies and law enforcement whenever a resident leaves the group home without permission. And the 23 missing person reports on Emily indicate when police found her. She told them that she didn't like living at the group home, that she didn't want to go back.

Those three reports indicate that Emily was found within hours of being reported missing each time and was either returned to the group home or taken to a behavioral health center. Justin, what can tell us about this? The unverified reports are that this particular facility has had an issue with runaways. The numbers that I have heard are 30 kids have run away from that home. Most of the time they return. And that was part of the issue with Emily going missing this last time, was that typically she would run away, but then she would always return.

And not to go off onto a tangent, but that's another challenge that we have with teenagers is oftentimes when they go missing, they're treated as runaways and therefore law enforcement might not get involved quickly, whereas as a 14, 15, 16-year-old, you're still a child. Even if you are a runaway,

you're still at that point vulnerable. You're still in danger. But again, that's a different discussion. But yeah, that's my understanding, and I did see the licensing inquiry being opened up. But like I said, my understanding is that this is not the first issue, the first time that they've had issues with other people other than Emily running away from this home due to supposedly issues with staff or the environment. I know that was one of the things that Emily had said in a previous report as to why she would leave. And at the same time, that who wants to be in a group home?

That's fair. Yeah. And look, I will tell you, ABC 15, they got a look at some of those missing person reports. And it provides more details about what Emily, you know, alleged was happening at the home. There was a report from September 11, 2023, states that Emily had run away with another teen. And when officers found them, they reportedly told them they did not want to go back to the group home because they make them work by scrubbing walls, baseboards, window seals, even getting on their hands and knees to scrub the grout on the tile. Emily reportedly ran away again less than two weeks later, told an officer she didn't want to return because it makes her on full. comfortable when the staff gets into arguments with other juveniles in the home, according to a press release from the San Carlos Apache Tribe Council to Arizona legislatures. Unfortunately, Emily is not the first child to leave Sacred Journey without the group homes permission. The Mesa Police Department

reports that about 30 children have run away from Sacred Journey over the past three years. You hope it's not a case like this, Justin, that requires some sort of change, right? Yeah, I mean, I think that we definitely need to have some kind of change with this. And going a little bit more into that, I feel like when you're in a facility like this, if you're in, if you're being placed in a group home, there is a reason for it, whether there's family issues or you're a troubled teen or troubled kid. And everything that she's describing, that's not the way to help get these kids to a better spot, having them do forced manual labor, having them experience, you know, arguments that could be triggering

depending on the home environment that they're coming from. you know you're really as a home that's supposed to cater towards troubled kids troubled teens you would really think that they would do a better job at trying to make sure that those kids felt you know safe and secure during their time there and i think that's probably again another look into a much larger issue not just here but probably at a lot of these home and by the way this council had recommended that the Arizona legislature enact legislation in emily's name that will quote strengthen safety, security, monitoring, licensing, and operational standards for foster and children group homes.

The tribe is also pushing for the legislature to pass House Bill 2281, which would create an alert system for missing indigenous people, similar to an Amber Alert. I imagine, Justin, that's something that would be quite necessary, but talk to us also about, you know, maybe this environment as well, as we're trying to understand what happened to Emily. It seems like it's just a bunch of different factors that are happening at one time. that have led to a really, really disastrous result here. Talk to us about what we should be thinking about this environment, this area of Arizona, all these different factors, because it adds to the chilling aspect of this mystery.

Yeah, and let me kind of go a little bit outside. Let's widen that scope a little bit. Let's kind of the things that people might not realize about our indigenous communities is four out of five. So that's 84.3%. Four out of five indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime. Fifty-one points, it's estimated that 56.1 to 65% of indigenous women have experienced sexual violence. More than one and a half million indigenous women

have been victims of violence. They experience rates of murder, rape, and violent crime are exceeding the national average. And as of 2020, homicide is one of the leading top three causes of death for indigenous girls and women aged one to 45. So when you look at what's happened to Emily specifically outside of the group home this is this is not new to that community it's something that they are all especially the women and girls are very much aware of they're also aware of the fact that they are more likely to be victims of physical or sexual violence than they are to attend college so i think that those are things that people probably don't realize that they really should be thinking about and emily is unfortunately now become just another statistic of these

just absolutely hauling and staggering numbers. Do they ever catch the people who are responsible to this, or is this a situation where because of these particular circumstances, it allows people to commit crimes and get away with it? So I think that's a good question, and it's more the latter. And what I can tell you, and I don't have newer data than this, so I apologize. But in 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing indigenous persons in the U.S., and only 116 of those were logged into NamUs.

and for people who don't know what that is, that's the national missing and unidentified person system. And even when they do get logged in, oftentimes under the wrong ethnicity, there's lack of coordination between tribal, state, and federal agencies, which means that many go uncounted for or uninvestigated. And even the Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates that there's at least 4,200 unresolved missing indigenous cases, persons cases in the U.S. it's it's really a problem and a big part of what leads to that is again going back to that

jurisdictional issue uh that you have which is you know did it happen on tribal land you know were both people you know indigenous which oftentimes like i said at the beginning of this the perpetrator is is not you know more than 90 percent of sexual violence against indigenous women is committed by non-native offender so i think that when you have all of that you know they go into the tribal lands for whatever reason they they commit these fences they leave and there's no jurors there's no clear path for jurisdictional um justice basically for these people and i think that's a big part there's legal gaps it really is it really is big legal holes more than anything let me ask you this going back to emmeline pike for a second

the investigation seems like it's stalled right they don't have particular suspects is there anything you're learning through your reporting about this research into this about who they might have been looking at what they might have been looking at any potential leads where the investigation is right now so the only thing that i've seen as far as a new update is that the san carlos apache tribe is now offering a 75,000 reward for information leading to arrest and conviction which is the first time that i've seen an award like this it doesn't mean that doesn't happen just first time i've seen it offered by one of the tribes but as far as leads from what i understand from what I've seen from what I've even heard that's unverified there is there is nothing that

there's no leads there's no suspects it's not really on anybody's radar and to me it sounds like it's not really getting um the proper investigation or justice that really needs to be brought not justice but you know investigation that's brought into it to try to bring these people justice it doesn't sound like anybody's really doing much of anything beyond even after such a gruesome end for Emily, where you talk about this, you know, these remains that were found in, you know, all the remains? I mean, that's a chilling aspect, too. Yeah, it's supposedly, her legs and her arms are what's missing, supposedly. Again, that's unverified, but that's what people, you know, in that area have kind of been saying. No, and I agree with you, because not only is this a brutal

end, you know, for somebody, this is a child. You know, she's 14 years old. She has. She has, had a full life ahead of her, and she deserves the same attention that, you know, anybody else would get in this type of a situation. And if, honestly, if it were most, and I hate to say it this way, if she wasn't indigenous, a case like this would probably be blowing up on social media, blowing up everywhere it was. But unfortunately, one thing that I've discovered being a social media creator is I can cover, you know, a case like this, but because they're indigenous, people will just scroll by. And that's really a pity.

Well, hopefully they don't scroll by this video because I think it's an important conversation that we're having. And by the way, that adds to one more thing because it turns out there was another murder in the same area where Emily was found dead four years ago. 31 year old native man Leo Harry White was found in a car with multiple gunshot wounds off US 60 at mile post 277 in September of 2021. According to the Gilly County Sheriff's Office, there is a key difference between Emily's killing. in whites. It's that whites appears to have been killed in his parked car, while investigators believe that Emily was killed somewhere else and her body was dumped off of U.S. 60. Spokesperson told media outlet Arizona family that the deaths are not believed to be connected. Justin, what do you believe? There's a lot of indigenous people that live, you know,

in Arizona, New Mexico. So it could just be another example of violence against indigenous people. do I believe they're connected or not I think that it's too soon to tell and I don't think we have enough information but at the end of the day you have two people who are indigenous that are gone now if somebody's thinking in the back of their mind

like a serial killer I don't really see that there's a connection between you know a man in his car and a teenage girl I feel like a teenage girl is going to be a lot easier of a target more vulnerable especially coming from a group home probably easier whereas what happened with the gentleman

that, you know, he was in his car. And again, we don't know what happened with it, because that one was also unsolved and not really investigated. So I think that there's just a lot of violence, and this kind of just highlights how much of it is that. In a four-year span, you can find two people brutally murdered, you know, very close, you know, where their remains were found, very close to each other.

I do wonder in these kinds of cases that you've been talking about, the ones that are solved, the ones that are investigated to a conclusion, Are these crimes committed by people who are family members, friends, people who know the victims, or are they complete strangers who are looking for a crime of opportunity? What can you tell us about that? You know, I actually don't know the answer to that. I'd have to verify. But if I had to guess based on conversations that I've had with people in, I'm thinking specifically the Navajo tribe,

which I had recently, it seems to me that most of them are people who come on to reservation land for some type of work or some type of, They have a purpose to be there temporarily. So they come onto the land. They're there for their period of time and they leave. It doesn't sound like it's people that know their victims. If they do know them, it's probably not very well, at least based on what I kind of understand. But again, you don't hold me to that. When you hear law enforcement saying if you have video of Emily, I don't know this area very well,

do you have confidence that people would have the kind of video that's necessary to track her location? I mean, it's not like, you know, I cover the Luigi Mangione case. It's not like it's a metropolitan city where you have video cameras everywhere. Do you have any idea about what they might be looking at if there is an idea about, you know, is there a large reservoir of video footage, video surveillance cameras in this area? I think that that's a great question, a great point to bring up. And the short answer to that is do I think that there are cameras to a degree? I mean, I do.

I think that people have ring cameras. I think people have security cameras on their business. There should be something somewhere that caught her. Now, would it be enough to track her locations? And I think Luigi is a really great example because you can't go five feet in New York without getting picked up on a camera. You're going to have constant coverage everywhere. But this is a very different area, very rural, very desolate for the most part, outside of

where you have your buildings and things like that, your business is your homes. And so depending on where she went, do I think that somebody has footage out there of her absolutely i don't see how this day and age it wouldn't be possible but do i think that there's enough to trace exactly where she went no not unless you can find who might have taken her and you can catch their vehicle and then you might be able to pick up work backwards from there i think other than that it's going to make it very difficult unless there's evidence that was left on emily and so many people are looking for justice for emily right now you know family members described her as a sweet and soft-spoken girl who did well in school she was looking for

forward to college. You said it so well, Justin. She had her whole life in front of her. They said that her smile was said to be infectious. One relative compared her to Tinkerbell, sparkling, full of light. In a phone call, Emily's uncle, Alred Pike Jr. told NBC News, her being deceased is one thing. But the way that she was found was another thing. It's hard to comprehend that someone would do such a thing to a 14-year-old girl. Justin, it really is hard to comprehend that. And in your experience covering these kinds of crimes, You know, we talk about all the time, right? The idea of a stabbing, it's personal, it's filled with anger.

This kind of crime, in your experience, who typically commits this kind of attack? I mean, this is, when you're talking about something like dismemberment, you know, it's very, it's brutal, right? It's almost serial killer-esque trying to, you know, get rid of the body, although they, you know, just dumped her on the side of the highway like she was, like she was. she was trash, literally in trash bags, I think that when you're, I think that when you're talking about somebody who could, number one, harm a child to begin with, you're looking at a special kind of, for lack of, for lack of a better word, or for a YouTube safe word, we'll say, a special type of horrible, special type of brutal. But when you look at adding something like dismemberment to it, I think it really just takes it to another level of just how,

horrific and sadistic somebody like that could be and to me it also sounds like it's probably not their first time that's i yeah i think you might be right about that although i will tell you i've covering these cases sometimes people's first crime is the most unimaginable worst crime that you can think of i mean they're just sometimes they're fair you know they're literally uh law-abiding citizens maybe have a couple of speeding tickets and then they commit a brutal murder and dismemberment i've seen that too so it's hard to guess but i will tell you this um justin shepard I really appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you bringing this case to my attention

and to our audience's attention. Let everybody know where they can find you. If they have information about the Emily Pike case or they want to talk to you, I mean, where can people find your content, your channel, and, you know, the information they are going to be giving about this case and others. Yeah, and thank you for that.

And thank you for having me on and for bringing attention to this case on a more mainstream platform because I think that it really needs it. And I can be found on pretty much any social media channel, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. It's just in the nick of crime.

You can also go to just in the nick of crime.com, and all my socials are there as well. And then if you do have information on this case, you can email it to me. I'll get it to the right people. And you can get to my email address from that website as well. And anybody has anything. Please do feel free to come forward and send that. We'll make sure that we get it to the right people. Now, just as an aside before we wrap up, as the lawyer here, let me just say,

did you trademark that name? Because you better. It's a really good one. And if you didn't, Justin, the crime is fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. I'm in the problem. We'll say that I'm in the process of it.

Good. Good, good, good. And the funny thing about it is, yeah, and the funny thing about it was I actually, it was very hard to come up with a name that was available on all platforms. I wanted to keep it very cohesive, given the size of my, my following, if you combine them all together, is over two million people. And so it was hard to find something on every platform to get there. And actually it was a fairly recent change in the last six months that I changed it to

that from another name. But no, I appreciate that, but I probably should look into making sure that, check on the process of that, I should say. Well, I wish you best of luck. And Justin, thanks so much for taking the time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Likewise. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.