PHOENIX (KRQE) – A man convicted of the murder of a missing Navajo Woman was sentenced on Monday. Tre C. James, 31, of Piñon, Arizona will serve life in prison for the murder of Jamie Yazzie, who was classified as a missing and murdered Indigenous person from the Navajo Nation.
James was found guilty of first-degree murder by a federal jury. They also found James guilty of several acts of domestic violence committed against three other women. U.S. District Court Judge Douglas L. Rayes for the District of Arizona gave James an additional 10-year sentence in prison to run concurrently and five years of supervised release for each of those assaults.
Officials say James shot and killed Yazzie on the Navajo Nation in the summer of 2019 and hid her remains on the Hopi Reservation. The remains were hidden for almost three years.
Many things factored into the years-long investigation such as the fact that Yazzie hadn’t been reported missing for several days, James had cleaned the crime scene, and the user occurred while James and Yazzie were home alone together. The global pandemic, which hit the Navajo Nation hard, also was a challenge to navigate. The assaults on the other women James committed were discovered during the ongoing investigation.
