Never surrendering, the family of Terri McCauley is one step closer to seeing justice as her accused murderer sits in a Sioux City, Iowa, jail, awaiting trial more than 40 years after her death. The Omaha tribal citizen was killed in 1983.

McCauley's story's ending is a rarity among Native Americans. Most cases go unsolved for a variety of reasons. May is Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Awareness Month. The goal is to bring attention to cases often overlooked or quickly abandoned by law enforcement agencies.

"When we started out seeking justice, it was like we were speaking to a brick wall," said Nate McCauley, McCauley's son.

McCauley addressed a group of about 100 people who gathered at Gene Leahy Park at the Riverfront in early May to honor missing and murdered Indigenous women.

In 1983, the Woodbury County attorney didn't think there was enough evidence to convict despite a detective's recommendation to charge Thomas Duane Popp. He was arrested earlier this year in Washington state.

McCauley's family credits MMIW awareness organizations with keeping her case in the public eye, said Nate McCauley. He was one of about a half dozen people speaking at the Omaha event.

The Omaha event included a round dance - a slow-moving, circular dance as part of a healing ceremony - with a drum group providing the music. Speakers shared personal stories involving the MMIW crisis. Organizations involved included Bluebird Cultural Initiative, Healing Ribbons, Project Beacon, Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition and the Ponca tribe.

More than 5,000 Indigenous women across the United States have been identified as missing or murdered since 2015, but cases go back several decades, said Lestina Saul-Merdassi, who works with Project Beacon and the Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition.

Nebraska ranks seventh in the country with at least 35 women listed as MMIW. Omaha ranks in the top 10 nationally.

Michelle Lamere's case traces back to 1983, when the 23-year-old Winnebago citizen went missing in South Omaha. Her body was later found. She had been murdered. However, news accounts almost blamed the victim for her death, with authorities saying she had a drinking problem and was homeless (despite living with a man).

Lamere's case was never seriously investigated, nor is she listed in the Nebraska State Patrol's MMIW database, Saul-Merdassi said. The case is an example of how Native American murders are mishandled, she said.

"I think a big part of it is that Native people are seen as people of the past, or not viewed as contemporary people that are living in these communities, whether it's on the reservation or in urban settings," Saul-Merdassi said. "I think that there's kind of this invisibility, and that lack of media coverage contributes to that, but I also think it's, I mean, there's no way to sugar coat it, but I think it's also that it's racism. It's viewing black, brown Indigenous folks as being more disposable."

Native Americans are often misclassified as Asian or Hispanic, she said. When Indigenous People - she prefers Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives over MMIW because it includes everyone - go missing, Saul-Merdassi said she'll look in the trenches to find them.

"When somebody goes missing, it's best to look at the county jail rosters to see if they've been in there," she said. "I've actually located a person by following the county records and finding out when they were last arrested, what they were arrested for and pertinent details like racial profile.

"It's also good to check in the local homeless shelters, too, because sometimes a lot of our houseless relatives will frequent those areas, and they have databases that log people for the state of Nebraska."

For Kiteri Petto, her involvement with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (her preferred reference) began at an early age.

"As a kid, my mom would always warn us - I have three sisters - not to go to certain parts and tell us stories about Native women who had gone missing or mysteriously died in South Dakota," Petto said. "Their deaths were just kind of talked up as accidents or nothing was done. There were no investigations. So, I feel like at a young age I was warned about it, except it wasn't called MMIP back then."

Then, the issue hit close to home for Petto.

"When I was in my early 20s, my mom said she was leaving to go with my aunt Julie to do a ceremony in Kansas, where they had found my cousin's murdered body," she said. "They were going to bring her spirit back because of the nature that she was left in and the nature that she was killed."

It seems almost any Native American can share a story about the loss of a relative. But the 2017 killing of Nathan Bear Heels at the hands of Omaha police officers not only united local Native Americans, but it also sent a chilling message.

Bear Heels, who lived with mental illness, died from wounds suffered after being tased more than 12 times by police. No one was convicted of his death. His death and the subsequent acquittals rallied area Native Americans to seek justice for Bear Heels.

"It really took away the sense of security that I had," Saul-Merdassi said. "I guess just hearing about that violence and having it be so close to home. You know that these things happen, but it was kind of like a wake-up call."

She fears the same thing that happened to Bear Heels could occur to her brother, who struggles with mental illness and often lives on the street, Saul-Merdassi said.

Knowing their work is ongoing, Native Americans often rely on themselves in addressing the MMIW issue, Saul-Merdassi said.

"What we found is that we have to be our own advocates, and we have to work to provide that support for each other and for our community," she said. "And I really see that happening with how we've organized and come together and seeing these different organizations pop up, like Bluebird Cultural Initiative, all of the work happening at Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition, and even with our organization, with Healing Ribbons, having a place that focuses on uplifting Indigenous matriarchs and Two Spirit (LGBTQ) relatives to just uplift Native families."

Tim Trudell is a freelance writer and online content creator. His work has appeared in Flatwater Free Press, Next Avenue, Indian Country Today, Nebraska Life, Nebraska Magazine, Council Bluffs Daily Non-Pareil and Douglas County Post Gazette, among others. He is a citizen of the Santee Dakota Nation.