Family waited 10 months for MMU call as agent left unit, Congress told

A Crow Nation professor told Congress on Tuesday that the federal Missing and Murdered Unit has not spoken with her family for 10 months about her niece's unsolved murder. Grace Bulltail testified that the primary agent on the case was pulled to other duties and has since resigned from the unit.

Bulltail, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former Not Invisible Act Commission member, testified before the House Natural Resources Committee's joint subcommittees on July 14 at a hearing that also examined technology, data systems, and investigative tools for addressing the missing and murdered Indigenous persons crisis. Her niece, Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, was murdered on Aug. 24, 2019.

"For 10 months now, we have been asking the MMU to schedule a half-hour phone call with our family to discuss their progress on Kaysera's case," Bulltail said. "The response we got was that they do not have time to talk to us."

Bulltail also testified that her family was not informed until four years after Kaysera's death that Big Horn County still had several of her facial bones in custody. Those bones were the only physical remains available after the county coroner cremated her body against the family's wishes.

The MMU was established in 2021 and had about 1,485 active cases as of June 30. Charles Addington, principal director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services, said a May 2026 Secretarial Order refocused the unit by redirecting agents away from predatory-crime work, which was assigned to a newly created Predatory Crime Unit, and back to their core responsibilities of responding to missing-person reports and working cold cases. He added that a new division chief had been hired to lead the MMU. Asked about family wait times, he said: "We, we can always do better."