A young mother caught in a cycle of violence struggles to find her way out, and her family must seek justice on her behalf. What happened to Ashlea Aldrich?
Episode Media
Episode Sources
- Death of woman on Omaha Reservation under investigation
- Candlelight vigil held for Macy, NE woman
- Authorities investigating woman’s death near Macy
- GoFundMe – Donation for Ashlea Aldrich Family
- ‘This is one of the most heartbreaking issues’: Young Native woman’s death tied to domestic violence
- ‘When they do turn for help, nobody believes them’: Native women hold vigil in honor of Ashlea Aldrich
- Cheerleading Squad Honors Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
- ‘We’ve got to pay attention’: Omaha Tribe declares emergency amid health and safety crisis
- ‘It was breathtaking’: Local artist’s MMIWG painting touches family in Nebraska
- Family still seeking justice one year after Macy woman’s death
- Stolen lives: The epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women
- Family Claims FBI Botched Investigation Of Nebraska Indigenous Woman’s Death
- Two Americas: Murdered & missing Indigenous women; why no one seems to care
- Omaha Tribe holds memorial on 4th anniversary of woman’s disappearance, death
- Macy community unites together in remembrance of Ashlea Aldrich
Episode Transcript
Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a heartbreaking case that still needs justice. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.
Ashlea Elizabeth Aldrich grew up in the small town of Macy, Nebraska, on the Omaha Reservation, right across the border from Iowa. The youngest child of Galen and Tillie Aldrich, Ashlea could be shy around strangers, but around her family, she was energetic and always smiling. Tillie told the Sioux City Journal that her youngest daughter was scrappy and resourceful. “She was just aggressive when it came to her sisters, because she was so tiny. She always fought harder when they wrestled or did anything.”
As Ashlea grew older, she began exploring her creative side. She loved art, especially drawing, and she also discovered a talent for makeup and hair. In the spring of 2009, Ashlea graduated from Omaha Nation High School and enrolled at La James International College. She earned her degree in cosmetology in 2010 and set out to begin her career.
In 2011, the Aldrich family received some devastating news: Tillie had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Around the same time, historic flooding of the Missouri River Basin overwhelmed the reservation, and the Aldriches lost their family home. They salvaged the few possessions they could and moved into a small apartment in town.
Although this time was difficult for the whole family, Tillie told the Journal that Ashlea seemed to take it the hardest. “I think that’s when I started to lose her. When I was busy fighting cancer, she was drifting away and getting into a relationship.”
Much to her family’s dismay, Ashlea reconnected with her high school boyfriend. He has never been officially identified by any news sources, so I’m just going to refer to him by his nickname – Junior. Junior had a violent temper, and the Aldrich family worried about Ashlea’s safety. Over the next few years, they contacted the tribal police dozens of times to report incidents in which Junior had assaulted Ashlea. But most of the time, the police didn’t take any action, and when they did, the charges were either dismissed or reduced. Tillie told the Journal, “As many times as we’ve turned him in, nothing has ever happened to him.”
In June of 2015, Ashlea gave birth to a baby boy. A year later, another little boy followed. Ashlea was so in love with her sons and wanted to give them the world, but living in a violent, abusive home was wearing on her. She began spending more time at her parents’ house, but she always returned to Junior, and the cycle continued.
On July 3, 2017, Tillie showed up at Ashlea and Junior’s apartment to find her daughter standing in the shower, fully clothed and covered in blood. There was also blood all over the apartment, splattered on the walls and the mattress in their bedroom. The couch was soaked with blood, and Tillie was horrified by what her daughter had experienced and what her two young grandsons had witnessed at the hands of their father.
Junior was arrested and charged in Omaha Tribal Court with domestic disturbance and child endangerment. But like all the times before, the charges were eventually dismissed, and Ashlea was left unprotected yet again. She began losing weight and drinking more heavily. When Tillie and Galen took over the care of Ashlea’s sons in 2018, Ashlea began spending more and more time at their house, seemingly reluctant to return to her own apartment. Tillie told the Journal, “[Ashlea] was always so content with [her sons]. That was her happiness. She didn’t even need anything else.”
Throughout it all, Galen and Tillie made sure their daughter knew she could always come to them, that they would support her no matter what. In the fall of 2019, Ashlea checked herself into a detox center in Omaha. She tried to get into an inpatient treatment facility after that, but the long waiting list sent her back to the reservation, back into the arms of her abusive boyfriend.
On December 8th, Tillie got a call from someone who told her that Ashlea had been hurt. Apparently, she and Junior had gotten into a fight, and as she tried to get away, he slammed her hand in the car door. Ashlea had run to a neighbor’s house to seek shelter until police arrived. When Tillie met her daughter at the hospital, Ashlea just said, “I’m sorry, mom.” Tillie reassured her that she was safe now and that she would be coming home with her.
Ashlea stayed with her parents through Christmas, happy to spend time with her sons and get some rest. But Junior kept coming around, giving Ashlea gifts and telling her what she wanted to hear. On Christmas Eve, he brought her a cell phone, but while Ashlea was excited about the present, Galen and Tillie were concerned. They believed Junior would use the phone to track Ashlea’s movements, just another way he could control her.
In the early morning hours of December 26th, Tillie was in the living room when Ashlea walked in. She put on her coat and told her mom that she was going outside to smoke a cigarette, but Tillie knew something was off. She begged her daughter not to leave, then watched as Ashlea walked out the back door and drove off into the night.
Tillie jumped in her own car and went looking for Ashlea, finally catching her with Junior in downtown Macy. Tillie told Ashlea that she was afraid for her, worried about her safety. But Ashlea said she would be fine. She told her mother that she loved her and then walked away.
Over the next few days, Tillie couldn’t get Ashlea off her mind. Something was gnawing at her, her instincts were on high alert. Then, on January 6, 2020, she got a text from her daughter Alyssa. She had heard that someone saw Ashlea in Junior’s SUV, and she had been “beat up”. Tillie’s sense of foreboding intensified. She lit a match, burned some sage, and prayed for her youngest daughter.
The next day, January 7th, Galen was out doing maintenance work when he spotted Junior’s SUV in the middle of a cornfield just south of town. He told the Journal that as he approached the car, he saw evidence that someone had been there not too long ago. “I could see her tracks where she got out, kind of going around the front of the truck. I could see his tracks, but I really couldn’t tell which way they went. Then, I had that feeling – I knew something was wrong.”
The SUV was parked not far from Blackbird Creek, so Galen walked to the bridge that crossed over Main Street and headed towards the water. Suddenly, a car pulled up with Junior behind the wheel. Immediately, Galen asked Junior where Ashlea was. When had he last seen her?
Junior told Galen that he hadn’t seen Ashlea since Sunday, two days earlier. He claimed that they had been driving through the cornfield when his SUV had gotten stuck in the mud. Ashlea had decided to walk back to town to get help while Junior stayed with the car. He waited for a while, but Ashlea never returned.
Junior’s story didn’t sit right with Galen. Their apartment was within easy walking distance from the cornfield. Why would he sit in the car while Ashlea walked to town alone when they could have just as easily gone home? And hadn’t he been concerned when Ashlea didn’t come back? Why hadn’t he said something to them sooner?
Galen left the encounter feeling unsettled. He headed to the tribal police department and asked to speak to the captain. As he waited, he overheard a call come into dispatch – a woman was screaming for help, asking officers to come to a field south of town.
While Galen stood in the police station, his daughter Alyssa was kneeling in a cornfield, holding her sister’s lifeless body.
Alyssa described the horrifying experience in a Facebook post, detailing the moments before she found Ashlea. Like her parents, Alyssa had felt uneasy about Ashlea in the days after Christmas. She hated knowing that her little sister wasn’t safe. On the afternoon of January 7th, Alyssa had decided to go confront Junior, to rescue her sister from his abuse. But as she drove down Main Street, something told her to go past the house. It was then that she saw Junior’s SUV parked in the cornfield. Alyssa pulled off the road and drove through the field as far as she could before her car got stuck in the mud. She then jumped out and made her way on foot. Just as Galen had done, Alyssa looked inside and around the SUV, hoping for some sign of Ashlea. Perhaps moved by some force, she turned and began walking towards the creek. As she did, she saw something by the tree line – her sister’s beautiful black hair blowing in the wind. Ashlea lay face down in the mud, completely still and stripped of all her clothing.
Alyssa ran to her sister and pulled her into her arms. Ashlea was cold, and it was clear that she had been dead for quite some time. Alyssa took off her coat and covered her baby sister, wanting to protect her one last time. Then, she screamed for help.
As members of the Aldrich family arrived at the scene one by one, police officers had to hold them back, keep them from getting close. Ashlea’s parents and siblings sat and watched for hours as investigators processed the scene, until finally Ashlea’s body was taken away.
Authorities told the family that Ashlea’s death was being treated as a homicide and that they were sending soil samples and DNA swabs to the FBI crime lab in Quantico. But from the beginning, it seemed as though investigators were ignoring obvious details.
An FBI agent told the family that there was no evidence that Ashlea had been sexually assaulted, and that there was no bruising or evidence of strangulation on her body. So when Galen and Tillie saw their daughter at the funeral home, they were shocked by the state she was in. Tillie wrote on Facebook that Ashlea appeared to have been severely beaten. Galen told the Journal, “She had a black eye, her nose was swollen and there were little welts all over her.” When they asked about the obvious discrepancy, the FBI agent told them that it was because of the way Ashlea had been lying on the ground, not because of any external force.
There was also the issue of the mud. When Alyssa had found Ashlea in the field, her sister had been covered with mud, stretching all the way from her back down to her calves in a pattern that almost looked as though it had been purposefully rubbed on her. But later, the family was told that there had been no mud on Ashlea at all, not even on the bottoms of her feet. It just didn’t make sense, didn’t match up with what they had witnessed.
On January 10th, Junior was arrested and charged in Omaha Tribal Court with criminal homicide and criminal contempt. The family began to feel a small measure of hope; maybe there would be justice for Ashlea.
But soon, things began to unravel. On January 17th, the Douglas County Coroner released the official autopsy report. Ashlea’s immediate cause of death was listed as “hypothermia complicating acute alcohol toxicity”. The coroner, in conjunction with investigators, believed that Ashlea had been drunk and had wandered off, eventually succumbing to the cold winter night. Her death was officially ruled an accident, and the charges against Junior were dropped.
But Ashlea’s family refused to back down, believing that investigators had turned away from the truth. Tillie told the Journal, “The agent who originally investigated was negligent and clearly wanted a quick, closed case. There are too many unanswered questions.”
Friends and family members organized protests and candlelight vigils, determined to keep Ashlea’s memory alive and remind the community that domestic violence would not be tolerated. Galen and Tillie spoke up about tribal leadership’s failure to protect their daughter, how multiple pleas for help had been unanswered and ignored.
Colette Yellow Robe, the chairwoman of the Native American Women’s Nebraska Task Force, told Indianz.com that Omaha tribal leaders needed to take a strong stance against domestic violence and evaluate the policies that negatively affect victims. “I believe it’s going to have to start with the tribal leadership making a statement and making a stand.”
In February of 2020, the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska declared a state of emergency. In the aftermath of Ashlea’s death, the tribe saw a wave of suicides among its youth, something they believed to be a reflection of the community’s feelings of isolation and hopelessness. In a written resolution, tribal leaders stated, “The Omaha Tribe is under immediate risk to health, wellbeing and life that requires urgent intervention to prevent worsening of the situation.” They vowed to seek state and federal resources to address the crisis, directing funds towards suicide prevention, addiction support, and domestic violence prevention.
In January of 2021, on the one year anniversary of Ashlea’s death, her family and friends gathered to remember her and honor her life. Tillie spoke to the somber crowd, saying, “Even we couldn’t protect her. The law enforcement can’t protect her. None of our laws can protect her. That’s what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for justice, so that we’ll never have another Ashlea. I can’t bear any of my tribal members to go through what I went through this last year.”
Although Ashlea’s abuser walks free, her family has not given up on justice. They continue to speak out against domestic violence in their community, and they encourage others to do the same. In January of 2024, Tillie told KTIV, “We have to speak up. We are the people, and we have a voice, we have to use it and we have to stand together not only to get justice for Ashlea but for anybody and everybody that has been done wrong, and treated unfairly, and has lost loved ones, and has questions, and that need answers.”
Ashlea’s story does not have a happy ending, but yours can. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788. Help is available 24/7 – it is free and confidential. Domestic violence is not your fault: you deserve to be safe and listened to.