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Hey listeners, it's Vanessa. I'm so excited to tell you about an incredible true crime podcast that just wrapped up its latest season. The podcast is called Stolen, and this season, host Connie Walker travels to the Navajo Nation to investigate the case of two missing women. She even embeds with the police and families searching for them, and in the process, she uncovers ways in which these two women's stories...
might be connected, and why the line between missing and murdered is often so difficult to prove. We've been fascinated with this story, and I know you'll obsess over this podcast as much as we have. We'll share the first episode here now. If you enjoy it, make sure to check out the entire season, and past seasons, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Please take care while listening.
Joanne Begay was trying to fall asleep. It was the middle of the night on June 15th, 2021. She was home alone in her small house in a remote corner of the Navajo Nation. Suddenly, Joanne was startled by a loud sound coming from the front door. It sounded like someone was trying to get in. She ran to hide a moment before hearing her door being kicked open. Then, a man walked into her house.
Every time I hear this story, I can't help but put myself in Joanne's shoes. This is one of my worst fears. Being awoken in the middle of the night by an intruder. What happened next changed Joanne's life and the life of her family. Some of the details are still a mystery, but here's what I've been able to piece together. Joanne was afraid. She listened in the darkness as the man walked through her kitchen and started rummaging through her cupboards.
She heard a soda can crack open, and the man take a long sip. After he finished it, he twisted the cap off a bottle of Gatorade and drank that too. Joanne was hiding in her room, terrified the man would find her. I don't know how long she hid, but eventually, she heard him walk out of the door he'd kicked open. When she felt it was safe, she looked out her window. She could make out a man's slight figure walking away.
Joanne reached for her phone and called the police for help. She told them about the intruder. And then she waited and waited. An hour later, Joanne was still waiting when she heard a sound from the house next door where her mother, Ella Mae Begay, lived. It was around 3:30 in the morning and her mother's truck had just started up. She watched it pull out of the yard, through the metal gate, and off down the red dirt road.
Why would her mom be leaving in the middle of the night? Joanne called her mom's phone. There was no answer. She texted. Nothing. She called the police again, and 20 minutes later they finally showed up. But it was too late. Ella Mae Begay was gone and was never seen again. I'm Connie Walker. From Spotify, this is Stolen: Trouble in Sweetwater. This is her house. Oh, this is her house. Okay.
We're trying to take care of it and wait for her to come back. This is the home of Ella Mae Begay. Her house is a long blue wooden rectangle on a foundation of cinder blocks that sits atop a stretch of dusty red earth in Sweetwater, Arizona. I came here after hearing about Ella Mae's disappearance. Her niece, Seraphine Warren, is showing me around. Yeah, this used to be just a hogon. Her husband died.
And her son, Gerald, and her son-in-laws, they helped build this. This is my first time on the Navajo Nation. And even though it's in the middle of the United States, I'm surprised at how remote it feels. The Navajo Nation is home to the Diné people, and it's the largest reservation in the country. It covers most of the northeast corner of Arizona and dips into New Mexico and Utah.
For a Canadian, the landscape here feels almost otherworldly. Just vast stretches of desert and red rock that seem to unspool in every direction. It's beautiful. So how long did I let my live here? I don't know, 41 years old. For your whole life? Mm-hmm. It's a crisp, sunny day in late October 2022.
At this point, Ella Mae has been missing for almost a year and a half. And this is where she disappeared from. Seraphine points out a small house about 50 yards away. Her daughter lives in this blue house right here. Oh, so close. Wow. I can see the window Joanne would have looked out of when she saw her mom's truck driving away in the middle of the night. And there's trucks there. Do you think that means someone's there? No, there's nobody there.
Stepping onto Ella Mae's property, it feels like we could be stepping back in time. Beside the house, there's a rusty green pickup truck. And nearby, parked under a tree, is a Chevy Impala convertible that looks like it's from the 1960s. So this is my auntie's classic car. Yeah, I remember her driving this before when we were younger. Ella Mae was 62 years old when she went missing. She lived in Sweetwater her whole life.
But she and other locals call this tiny community by its Navajo name, Tohlikan. Ella May mostly spoke Navajo. English was her second language. I've seen a photo of Ella May from the local trading post. She's holding up one of the pictorial rugs she was known for, depicting traditional Navajo life, farming, family, and a desert landscape. I've heard Ella May was quiet, and you can almost see it in the photograph.
She's small, only five feet tall, with straight brown hair that grays a bit at her temples. She's wearing a pair of tinted glasses and not looking directly into the camera lens. Ella Mae's family says she stayed close to home. She only ever took one trip to St. Louis when she was a kid in an Indian boarding school. She lived a quiet life under the radar until she went missing.
Since then, she's become one of the most high-profile cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. Photos of Ella May have been shared thousands of times on social media, and stories about her have been in People magazine and the New York Times. How did one woman's disappearance from this isolated community get so much attention? It's in large part due to her niece, Seraphine.
When I meet her at Ella Mae's house, she's wearing a hoodie with a red handprint on it that says, Unite the Missing, Justice for the Murdered. I have to be doing something for my aunt in order for me to feel better. She's been doing whatever she can to help bring attention to Ella Mae's case. She even walked over 2,000 miles from the Navajo Nation to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about Ella Mae.
She went through 15 pairs of sneakers. It took her almost four months. This is not just only for my aunt. This is for me, my kids, my family that are still didn't get justice. I've reported on missing and murdered Indigenous people for years. And LMA has gotten a level of attention I almost never see. Not just because of Seraphine's efforts. I think it's partly because, in general, there's more attention being paid to stories about Indigenous people.
But I also think it's because of who Ella Mae is. The first time I saw her missing persons poster, I was immediately drawn in. Because of her age. Her implicit vulnerability. I look at her and see the elders in my life who live alone in our communities. The thought of someone coming to their door in the middle of the night shook me. It seemed almost unfathomable.
The mystery of her disappearance, the lack of answers, compelled me to come here to try to find out what happened to Ella Mae Begay. Serafine tells me there's a $5,000 reward for information about Ella Mae's case, but she doesn't think it's going to make a difference. Money is not going to get anybody to talk here. No? No. They probably do want the money. They just want to know that there's not going to be a retaliation.
I think that there will be more leads coming in if they had a lot of confidence in our police officers. If they were to call in 15 minutes, they're here. But they know three, four hours, somebody's going to be dead. And they know that's the reason why nobody's coming forward. It seems like Serafine is saying that even if someone here knows something that could help solve Elame's case, they might be afraid to say it.
Sweetwater is 45 minutes from the nearest police station. And the night Ella Mae went missing, it took them an hour and a half and two phone calls to respond. Did you ever talk to any neighbors over there or anything? No, I think officers already have, but they don't say anything. But some of these guys probably heard or know something. And Serafine says there are other reasons why people don't want to come forward. They don't say anything because...
The inside of their house is not a condition to be have anybody living in some of these houses and they don't want to be questioned. So just to save them from more questioning and they're not going to talk to you. They're just going to open the door a little bit and be like, we don't know anything. I remember at the start of the pandemic, reading about how hard the Navajo Nation was hit by COVID. The high death toll was in part due to the lack of infrastructure. Basic things many of us take for granted are not a given here.
One in three people living on the Navajo Nation don't have indoor plumbing. I can see power lines in the distance, but they don't reach Ella Mae's house. Serafine tells me that Ella Mae lived here without running water or electricity for 40 years. She had just installed a solar panel months before she went missing. I grew up using an oil lamp. We had one oil lamp, I think. We used to fight over it.
My mom's weaving or my homework, you know. We got to make a decision. What's more important? Gerald Begay is the oldest of Ella May's three kids. He lives in Denver now. Do you remember when you found out your mom was missing? You know, my first instinct is, what do you mean she's missing? She doesn't just go missing. She just doesn't go leave and not say anything. Gerald remembers the last time he talked to his mom, just three days before she disappeared.
That Saturday I talked to her. Saturday night. Just like a normal conversations we've had before. Asking about the kids, you know, about the weather, how it is up here versus down there. You know, she seemed fine. After her husband died and her children moved out, Ella Mae lived here alone. Did your mom feel safe by herself at home?
I don't think she felt safe in the house, honestly, because she has a security door installed. And then on the inside of the house, she has this board. It's like a three quarter inch plywood or particle board that she slides in front of the door after the door is locked.
So that just tells me that I don't think she felt safe because that's barricading herself in the home. His mom put plywood in front of her door at night. We've heard that she wouldn't drive after dark, that she slept with pepper spray by her bed. She was careful and aware.
This is not just some person that was out there asking for trouble or making trouble, you know. When he got the call that his mom was missing, Gerald got in his car and drove to Sweetwater. I got there Wednesday morning. He says that almost immediately, he was concerned with the way police were handling the investigation. And I pulled them aside. We talked. They updated me what was going on and stuff.
The Navajo police are the largest tribal police force in North America. They have jurisdiction over the entire Navajo Nation, all 27,000 square miles. Sweetwater, where LMA lives, is in the Shiprock District, and their officers responded to the call about her disappearance. And I was frustrated and mad at the same time, because when I learned that the two officers that showed up
Leaving the scene without making contact, a phone call, a pickup truck, or my mom, that pissed me off. When two Navajo Nation police officers responded that night, it wasn't immediately clear to them that LMA was missing or that a crime had been committed. So Gerald says they didn't stay for long.
But he wonders if they had, would things have been different? You know, if they could have stuck around for an extra hour or two, the sun could have came up. You know, they should have taped that off, locked the door, or have an officer on site that could have potentially helped solve something. But no. Police didn't return until later that morning, after her family called them again. They had gone into Ella Mae's house and saw that her purse and wallet had been left behind.
This is when the search for Ella Mae truly began, seven hours after her truck drove off in the middle of the night. Her family believes crucial time was lost that set back the investigation and strained their relationship with the police from the very start. You know, that's why to this day I can't stand Sherbrooke Police Department. As news about Ella Mae's disappearance began to spread, the picture of what may have happened to her became clearer and clearer.
Because of their mistrust of police, the day after Ella Mae went missing, her family started trying to piece things together on their own, beginning with a break-in at Joanne's house. And so what did she say happened that night? She said she was trying to go to sleep. She woke up and then her door got kicked open. I've asked Serafine about this because Joanne didn't want to be interviewed. She said she's been struggling with what happened to her mom and it was too difficult to talk about.
Joanne told the family she didn't know who broke into her house. The first clue they got about who it might be was from Ella Mae's sister, Cecilia Curley, and her boyfriend, Leonard Toth. They were all gathered at Ella Mae's house when Leonard said something about his son Preston that surprised them. When they came by, his dad, Preston's dad, said in Navajo that it better not be Preston. And we're like, who's Preston?
Preston Toth is Leonard's 22-year-old son. He was new to Sweetwater. Most of LMA's family had never even heard of him. Leonard told them that Preston had come to stay with him and Cecilia just a couple of weeks earlier. And that's when Gerald's like, well, where is he? Where is he? What happened? Because he was nowhere to be found. So at that point, were you already suspecting Preston? No. We didn't really suspect it was Preston. We were just trying to find him.
Leonard and Cecilia said the last time they had seen Preston was a few hours before Ella Mae disappeared. They had gone with Preston to do laundry in town. They said Preston was drinking, and on the drive home, he started fighting with his dad. When it turned physical, they kicked Preston out of the vehicle and left him. When I first traveled to Sweetwater, I got lost on the way.
A maze of unmarked dirt roads lead to Ella Mae's house, but you kind of have to know where you're going. The odds that someone would just happen upon it seem low. Leonard and Cecilia said they left Preston on the side of the road at night, about 11 miles from Ella Mae's house. If he was new to the area, how could he have ended up there? Preston's dad is a handyman type of guy, supposedly. So him and his dad had fixed or repaired...
the door on my mom's house. This was two weeks before, and I think that's the first time he's met my mom. Preston Tulf had been to LMA's before. Hey, y'all. Marci Martin here with a little Tampax story. One time, I went on vacation in the Bahamas with some friends, and of course, I got my period.
I didn't want anything to stop me from living my best life on my trip. So I was like, why not be brave and try Tampax? Before that, I really just thought tampons were for adults, and I definitely thought they'd be uncomfortable. Guess what, y'all? They really aren't. It might take a few tries, but once it's in right, you shouldn't feel it, which is great. For a better way to period, just add Tampax.
Okay, so true story, I was scared to try tampons because I didn't know if they'd be able to protect like pads. Took me a few tries, but once inserted properly, tampons shouldn't hurt. If you feel it, it's not in far enough. Believe me, it changed my life. Like pads, tampons offer up to 100% leak-free protection, whether you're on the go or chilling at home. Now I do and wear whatever I want on my period, thanks to the freedom and flexibility I get with adding Tampax to my routine. Learn more at Tampax.com.
I found Preston Toth on Facebook. His profile picture is a selfie. If you told me he was in high school, I'd believe it. His face is young. His dark hair is tucked under a backwards baseball cap, and he's wearing an unzipped blue hoodie and is shirtless underneath, like he's trying to show off his stomach. He has kind of a goofy expression on his face. It's hard to square this image with what I learned when I looked up his criminal record.
Preston has been arrested more than a dozen times and has been in and out of jail for most of his adult life. He's been charged with burglary, aggravated battery, damaging property, and assault. In the days following Ella Mae's disappearance, police conducted interviews and started receiving reports that Preston had been seen driving her truck.
Good evening, it's day four of the search for a missing elderly Navajo woman. Police have now identified a person of interest in the disappearance of 62-year-old Ella Mae Begay, who tonight is being held in question. Two days after Ella Mae went missing, Preston was named a person of interest in her disappearance. And later that same day, Navajo police arrested Preston, not for anything related to Ella Mae, but for violating his probation.
In missing persons cases, every day, every hour, every minute counts in trying to find that person alive. With Preston in custody, Ella Mae's family was hopeful that they could find her before it was too late. Let's go this way first, and then I'll take you out that way. Okay. So this is Sweetwater? This whole area to the mountains. Okay. After visiting Ella Mae's house, Seraphine took me on a tour of Sweetwater.
When Ella Mae's truck left her house the night she disappeared it would have traveled on one of these dirt roads. So we searched this whole area. We did do a search right there but we didn't find anything. Seraphine points out the window. There isn't much out here. Except for some wild horses grazing on whatever they can find in the dust. There are mountains in the distance but all around us is open desert. Where do you think if there was a crime that happened where do you think it occurred?
I would say it's alongside the road. The crime happened and then to get rid of somebody, evidence or something or somebody it probably be further from where it happened at. But like not at her house? You don't think anything happened at her house? No. After Preston was arrested, Elamai's family waited for news from police but they also kept looking for her. We did a search on this whole road and then through the canyons on that side.
It was summer, and on some days the temperatures soared to over 100 degrees. They never found Ella Mae, but Serafine says they did find some things that they thought could be related to her disappearance.
East of where my auntie lives, close to that little peak mountain. Seraphine points out a small mountain in the distance, way out there. They came across a towel. And I seen that towel and I unrolled it and here it had, it could still have that smell of blood and it looked fresh. That was like probably the second week I think it was and we got cops to come pick it up.
And then on this mesa right here, the one we passed that you guys took a picture of, up there they found a pants that had blood spots on it. Serafine says she and the other searchers focused heavily on this area because police told her that's where they were looking after talking to Preston. All the investigator told me was that he dropped my auntie off over here in this little area on the side. Did police ever tell you where they think the truck ended up?
Well, when they, when I was asking criminal investigator, he said that he got rid of it in Albuquerque is what he said. Preston was told them, I guess. That's not all Preston told them. I would find out that police had more evidence pointing to Preston than the family even realized. And they had it soon after Ella Mae disappeared.
Police found Preston's clothes, a shirt, pants and underwear, all with blood on them. In an interview with law enforcement, Preston said he was with Ella Mae that night, that he drove with her in her truck, he said they'd had a fight, and that he snapped. He told them he lost control and hit Ella Mae multiple times in the face, and that he dropped her off on the side of the road, somewhere in Sweetwater.
He said she appeared to be unconscious and that he might have hit her harder than he intended. Ultimately, Preston said that Ella Mae was probably dead when he left her. Despite all of this, Preston wasn't charged in Ella Mae's disappearance. All they tell us is it's a continued ongoing investigation and we can't announce anything to the public. I think that's just a damn excuse that they follow and they don't do nothing.
I came here hoping to find out what happened to Ella Mae Begay. But now I also want to know what's happened with her case. Why did it take police so long to respond the night Ella Mae went missing? And why is her disappearance still unsolved with everything that Preston told investigators? This season on Stolen, Trouble in Sweetwater.
I said, "Preston's walking on the rug over there and see if we can get some answers from him." We have Preston with us. He also said he feels sorry about what happened and he wants to try to help find her. Investigating Ella Mae's disappearance leads me to a tangled web of violence and retaliation across generations. People go missing over there all the time and the cops
are not doing nothing about it. Where people feel the only way to get justice is to take matters into their own hands. We ended up in a pursuit following him. And at this point, I just hear who I'm with in the vehicle saying, don't lose him. Families were like, I know who did it. And I could easily go over there and just get rid of him. Around here, the aunties get shit done. We go places where people don't want to go. You could tell it was a human skull.
People know you can get away with murder out there. Stolen Trouble in Sweetwater is a Spotify original production. The show is hosted and reported by me, Connie Walker. Reporting and producing by Ellen Frankman, Max Green, and Anya Schultz. Our supervising producers are Ellen Frankman and Max Green. Additional reporting and production by Chantal Belrichard, Audrey Quinn, and Kat Schuchnecht.
Our reporting was supported by the International Women's Media Foundation's Fund for Indigenous Journalists, reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two-spirit, and transgender people. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Our consulting editor is Heather Evans. Additional editorial support from Naomi Barr, Laurie Siegel, and Lauren Silverman. Special thanks to Dr. Sunny Klautis-Chilagui. Fact-checking by Naomi Barr.
Original music by Hannes Braun, Connor Chee, and Emma Munger. Scoring, sound design, and mixing by Hannes Braun. Legal support from Brian Smith and Rachel Strom. Rights and clearances by Jonah Delso and Isabelle LaRue. If you or someone you know is dealing with physical or sexual violence, you can find resources in your area by going to Spotify.com slash stolen. Thank you for listening.
Thanks again for listening. To finish this series, make sure to head over to Stolen where you can listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.