Native American woman killed by car driven by ‘white supremacist’ whose children are named Aryan and Nation

Bungled investigation in probe of Native American woman killed by car driven by ‘white supremacist’ whose children are named Aryan and Nation creating tension in Montana after delay in bringing charges against motorist

Mika Josephine Westwolf, 22, was killed after being hit by a car driven by suspected white nationalist Sunny White, 28, as she walked home along a highway in Montana

Human rights group has urged investigators to examine case as a potential hate crime, but officers have so far refused to do so, enraging the community

More than two months on, Montana Highway Patrol is yet to file its report to the County Attorney, huge holes remain in the case and tensions with the community are at boiling point

Case notes suggest investigators failed to collect evidence and instead are focusing on whether Mika was drunk at the time

Investigators claiming White not arrested because the are investigating whether Westwolf was ‘drunk while walking’ has enraged the family

Family’s legal advocate has revealed that Native Americans in Montana see the case as part of ‘a pattern’ of ‘victim blaming’ their community.

Mika Josephine Westwolf, 22, [photo], was struck and killed by a vehicle as she was walking on the shoulder of a highway in Montana in the early morning hours of March 31

Newly emerging details reveal how the bungled probe of death of a young Native American woman killed by car of an alleged ‘white supremacist’ is ‘slow walking’ the course of justice.
In the early hours of March 31, Mika Westwolf, a 22-year-old Native American woman, was struck and killed by a car as she walked home along Highway 93 in Montana.
The accident happened on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Arlee, Montana. Behind the wheel of the Cadillac Escalade was suspected white nationalist, Sunny White, taking a trip with her two children named Aryan, who is 4, and two-year-old Nation.

The driver in the fatal crash is Sunny White, 28, [photo], a Montana woman and suspected white nationalist, with two children named Aryan and Nation. She remains under investigation

The death of Mika’s death is sadly not unusual. In the last three years 239 people have been killed on the same road in the Flathead Indian Reservation .
But the sinister circumstances around it have made her case a lightning rod for the Indigenous community, sparking protests amid allegations of racism, conspiracy and cover-up.
Investigators have so far stubbornly refused to entertain the possibility that Mika’s death was a hate crime.
Instead, they are pursuing a toxicology report on Mika and even appeared to suggest to her grieving family that White may not be prosecuted if their daughter was drunk.
To make matters worse, officers failed to collect video footage from the adjacent railroad and neighboring businesses, which may now be lost.

Grieving mother Carissa HeavyRunner, seen (right) with her daughter Mika Westwolf, is seeking justice

More than two months on, Montana Highway Patrol, the investigating force, is still to file its report to the County Attorney.
Huge holes in the case remain. Tensions with the community are at boiling point.
Erica Shelby, the family’s legal advocate has revealed that Native Americans in Montana see the case as part of ‘a pattern’ of ‘victim blaming’ their community.
She believes that, at best, the police are guilty of ‘incompetence’, but at worst their bungling smacks of a ‘cover up’.

The website mikamatters.com states, ‘We are in the process of seeking justice for Mika [Westwolf], with the local authorities, whose cooperation has been frustrating, at best, so far.’ Westwolf was killed by a motorist on March 31. The driver has not been arrested or charged

Mika was one of around 15,560 members of the Blackfeet Nation, one of the first Native American tribes to head west to Montana.
She was athletic, with a love of basketball, running, snowboarding and skating, according to MikaMatters.com, a website set up in her memory.
She won awards for her poetry and photography and was one of four Blackfeet members picked to attend an Indigenous Cultural Exchange with the Sherpa people of Nepal.
On the day she was killed, Mika had been walking home from the 4-Star Bar where she thought she had left her phone after a night out.
The trip was in vain. It had in fact slipped under the seat of her 19-year-old brother’s truck.
It is not known exactly what time Mika was hit by the Cadillac, as its driver had fled the scene by the time her body was discovered at around 4am by tribal officer TJ Haynes.

Mika Westwolf’s family described her as a ‘philosopher,’ ‘writer,’ and an ‘old soul’ 

The post in the gofundme page set up by the group seeking justice for Westwolf harped on the callous indifference of the motorist who killed Westwolf after the hit-and-run, ‘This person [motorist], did not even brake or try to avoid hitting her [Westwolf]. Instead, the person drove off and did not even try to provide any aid to our girl, leaving her on the side of the road’.
The crowd funding page has raised $24,451 of the $100,000 goal.

Mika Westwolf is seen [photo], while on an Indigenous Cultural Exchange program to Nepal

The driver, Sunny White was arrested in Lake County and cited by the Highway Patrol later that day with two counts of criminal child endangerment.
Around a week later, on April 6, Lake County Attorney James Lapotka dropped the charges ‘without prejudice’, meaning they can be brought back.
Lapotka say he did so because he had not received a final report from Highway Patrol.

The accident took place March 31, on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Arlee, Montana. The driver who reportedly did not stop nor offer any assistance, fled the scene

The following day – shortly after White was released from jail – a Missing and Endangered Persons advisory was issued stating that she had kidnapped her two children after breaking into the home of their biological father around 1.30am that morning.
But the advisory contained a bombshell revelation that sparked alarming questions over Mika’s death: the children’s names were Aryan and Nation.
It also revealed White is known to abuse drugs and that there was concern for the children’s wellbeing.
Aryan, a girl, and Nation, a boy, who both have blue eyes and red hair, had been removed from their mother’s care following the crash.
They were found safe the same day they went missing.

Sunny White kidnapped her two children after breaking into the home of their biological father on April 7, shortly after she was released from jail following the crash that killed Westwolf. The children were found same day 

Sunny K. White was charged with felony burglary and parenting interference, both felonies, as well as misdemeanor criminal mischief for the child abduction of April 7, seven days after Westwolf was killed 

But on May 18, White appeared in Butte-Silver Bow County court charged with burglary, parenting interference and criminal mischief – and the sheer recklessness of her alleged actions were laid bare.
An affidavit said that at around 1.15am on April 7, White contacted Butte law enforcement requesting a civil escort to pick up her children from their father’s house because he ‘was not a fit parent’.
The officer advised White to return the following morning to establish a plan, but just 20 minutes later received a 911 call about a woman breaking into a house in Butte.
The affidavit also states that White lied to the officer, telling him charges against her in relation to Mika’s death had been dropped due to ‘her blood results being negative’. In fact, she was bonded out and the toxicology report remained pending.
After White pled not guilty to the burglary, interference and criminal mischief charges, her next court appearance was scheduled for July 27.

In the intervening period, it is unclear what lines of inquiry Highway Patrol have made in investigating White’s role in Mika’s death.
On April 21, the patrol’s lead investigator on the case, Wayne Bieber, met with Mika’s mother, Carissa HeavyRunner, and stepfather, Kevin Howard, at their home in Lake County.
Shelby, who was also present, took notes.

A young Mika Westwolf is seen[center], with other members of her Blackfeet tribal community in Montana

They reveal an astonishing lack of progress and apparent reluctance from police to collect vital evidence.
Bieber admitted that Westwolf’s clothing wasn’t tested, in keeping with standard procedure, because it had not been left at the crime lab to be picked up.
The officer confessed the clothing had not been ‘handled in a proper manner’.
He also conceded that, three weeks after the crash, he had not collected surveillance video from businesses or the railroad along the highway where Westwolf walked, explaining that there ‘were always multiple things going on at once’.

Lead investigator Wayne Bieber suggested to Mika’s mother, Carissa HeavyRunner [right] that White was not in jail because the results of a toxicology report on Mika were still pending. There is no law that states a driver cannot be charged if they kill an intoxicated pedestrian

Instead, the investigation appears to hinge on toxicology results on both victim and suspect.
Bieber seemed to suggest that White was not in jail because it was not yet known whether Mika was intoxicated while walking home. To the question of why the suspect was not behind bars, Bieber’s response suggested that cops were looking into ‘Walking drunk, ‘We have to look at everything in the totality … Under Montana law, if you’re intoxicated, you’re not allowed to be on the roadway.’
He added: ‘That is one reason we are making sure a toxicology report is done. Because that gets played into the factor as far as the totality of the crash.’
Shelby, incredulous, pressed him further: ‘What does that have to do with her being out [of jail]?’
Bieber again referred to ‘the totality of the circumstances’ and made the first of repeated requests for the family to research the law on vehicular homicide.
Yet nowhere does the law state that a driver cannot be charged if they kill an intoxicated pedestrian.

The conversation then turned to the names of White’s children. Extraordinarily, it appears as though it was Mika’s parents who broke the news to Bieber that they were called Aryan and Nation, despite it being made public two weeks earlier.
Kevin, still startled by the officer’s admission that he had not collected available video evidence, suggested it would be ‘pertinent to gather that intel’ if ‘for instance, it is a white supremacist, maybe it was an intentional hit and run’.
Bieber appears confused, asking: ‘What is that you’re getting as information in so far as that it is an act of that?’
When Kevin pointed to the Missing Persons Advisory release that provided the names of White’s children, Bieber told him bluntly: ‘I can’t tell you how to name your child.’
Kevin posited that ‘if you name your kids Aryan and Nation, chances are you’re an affiliate’.
Bieber replied: ‘I can’t look at it as that and I shouldn’t look at it as that.’
The Montana Human Rights Network has said that the names of White’s children ‘clearly indicate her support for white nationalist ideals’ and urged Montana Highway Patrol ‘to fully investigate’ the case, ‘including White’s possible motivations, and for prosecutors to pursue hate crime charges if they apply’.
Whereas officer Bieber repeatedly appealed to the family for patience, stressing that such investigations take time, following White’s court appearance in May, Jay Nelson, public information officer for Montana Highway Patrol, confirmed White was being treated as a suspect in Mika’s death and that the case is ongoing, pending search warrants and reports from the Montana State Crime Lab. He further stated that it is a complex and mysterious case and there appears to be no smoking gun proving it was an intentional hit-and-run, or that it was spurred by racism.
Strangely, more than a month after the family’s meeting with Bieber, surveillance footage has still not been collected, Shelby claims. Infact, it is now likely to have been written over.

Mika pictured with other members of her Blackfeet tribal community in Montana

A spokesman for Montana Highway Patrol acknowledged that the MHP was notified of a vehicle vs. pedestrian hit and run fatality crash on Highway 93 two miles north of Arlee, On March 31, 2023, at 04:22 am, adding that, ‘The vehicle involved in this crash was located later in the day and the driver has been interviewed’. 
That state patrol noted that, ‘When the full investigation is complete, the report will be provided to the Lake County Attorney’s Office, and official summary of the crash will be released upon completion of the investigation.’
County Attorney, Lapotka has stated that his office still does not have a timeline on when he expects to receive a final report from Highway Patrol. However, the frustrated Native American community now plan a week of protests, beginning June 13, citing ‘systemic racism’, ‘bias’ and ‘a lack of commitment from prosecutors and investigators’.
The action, a series of remembrance walks organized by the MikaMatters group, aims to highlight what Native Americans believe is a pattern of discrimination against them.
While Native Americans account for 6.7 percent of Montana’s population, they account for 26 percent of the state’s active missing persons cases on average. Overall, Native women face a murder rate that is nearly 10 times the national average.

Mika, [photo], here as a younger girl, has become a symbol of what the Native American community in Montana see as a pattern of discrimination against them

The justice group, MikaMatters, allege that perpetrators of crimes against Native Americans in Montana ‘too often evade prosecution’ and offenders are ‘not diligently pursued’.It says that ‘to live with this ongoing truth is a profound devastation that shakes the very foundation of belief in a just and equitable society’.