When a young indigenous woman is found dead in the middle of the road, investigators set out to find justice. Who killed Ci’Lina Bell-Deloney?
Episode Media



Episode Sources
- Unsolved Homicide: Ci’Lina Teira Bell-Deloney
- Ci’Lina Teirea Toahty Deloney (1995-2017) – Find a Grave Memorial
- Family wants answers after armed robbers invaded their home
- Woman found shot, killed on Paint Rd. near Cache
- Body with gunshot wounds found on Paint Rd. identified
- Family seeks answers for Ci’Lina Deloney’s death
- Person of interest in Ci’Lina Deloney’s murder has been arrested
- Darnell McDaniel is no longer a person of interest in the Deloney murder
- Lawton shooting investigation leads to multiple charges
- Lawton woman’s murder remains unsolved two years later
- Research leads to stories of the Comanche 13 missing, murdered women
- Mother seeks justice in daughter’s murder
- Forgotten Faces – Ci’Lina Deloney
- Oklahoma investigators offering reward for information on cold case
- $5,000 reward offered for information in cold murder case
- OSBI Offering $5,000 Reward For Information On 2017 Comanche County Cold Case
- Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation looking for leads in Comanche County cold case
- Oklahoma law to tackle missing, murdered Indigenous crisis remains unfunded
- Tom Cole reaffirms commitment to address MMIW crisis
Episode Transcript
Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a case that is on the verge of being solved – investigators just need the right piece of information. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.
Ci’Lina Toahty Bell was born in June of 1995 in the town of Lawton, Oklahoma, in the heart of the Comanche Nation. Descended from a long line of Pawnee, Comanche, and Kiowa leaders, Ci’Lina was strong and smart. She was a straight-A student at Eisenhower High School and received an Oklahoma State Governor’s Award for future business leaders. She had great potential and a bright future ahead of her.
Ci’Lina was also kind and loving with an infectious smile and a beautiful singing voice. She loved with her whole heart and put others’ needs above her own. According to her family, “If she loved you, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for you.”
In January of 2012, at the age of 16, Ci’Lina married 21-year-old Dominique Deloney. A year later, she gave birth to a daughter she named A’Liyah. Ci’Lina loved her baby girl more than anything. Her mom Renea told KJRH that when A’Liyah arrived, “Everything centered around my grandbaby.”
Eventually, Ci’Lina dropped out of high school and began working full-time to provide for her small family. It wasn’t an easy existence, and Ci’Lina sometimes missed the carefree days of her youth, wondering about the high school experiences she had missed out on. As A’Liyah grew into a sweet, happy toddler, Ci’Lina set out to reclaim her youth.
According to her sister JurNee, Ci’Lina began hanging out with a new crowd. JurNee told KJRH, “We were, you know, going out and partying and meeting all different kinds of people. We had people coming to the house, drinking with us at the house.” During this period of self-discovery, Ci’Lina was still working full-time, but money was tight, and the stress was wearing on her.
Then, in October of 2016, her family experienced a traumatic home invasion. Around 10:30 in the morning, Dominique was playing video games in the living room when suddenly a man rushed into the house and held a gun to his head. Taken by surprise, Dominique at first thought it was some kind of prank. Then a second man burst into the room and put his hands around Dominique’s throat, pushing him down. A third man followed, pointing a pistol at Dominique’s face.
Dominique told KSWO that the only thing on his mind at that moment was protecting his daughter. One of the robbers walked Dominique to A’Liyah’s room at gunpoint, where they saw that the toddler was still sleeping peacefully, unaware of the chaos happening around her. Dominique said, “I sat down beside her, made sure she was okay. She was still asleep, I was just there trying to make sure she stayed asleep during the whole process.”
Thankfully, neither Dominique nor A’Liyah were harmed. The thieves ransacked the house, taking cell phones, televisions, and Dominique’s PlayStation. Then they left as quickly as they had come, speeding away in a black Ford Expedition.
Immediately, Dominique called Ci’Lina at work and told her what had happened. She rushed home, devastated that her husband and daughter had experienced such a horrible event. She later told KSWO that she was afraid the robbers would come back, that she didn’t feel safe in her own home anymore. “I just want them to find them. I don’t care about the stuff. I just want them to find out who did it. I want to find out who was in my daughter’s room with a gun pointed at my husband and three-year-old daughter because it is horrible. No human in their right mind would do that to a child, nobody. Anybody like that deserves to be put behind bars.”
After the break-in, Ci’Lina and Dominique installed security cameras outside the house and announced that they would offer a cash reward for any information about the identity of the robbers. But it doesn’t appear that anyone was ever charged with the crime.
The experience left Ci’Lina shaken, and in the following months, she struggled with fear and anxiety. Not long after, Ci’Lina lost her job and the family’s already-tight financial situation became even tighter. Soon, they couldn’t afford their house anymore and had to move into a motel in Lawton. It was a dark time for Ci’Lina, but she clung to her family for support, determined to make things better for her daughter.
On the morning of January 16, 2017, a call came in to the Comanche County Sheriff’s Office. A woman was lying in the middle of the road, and she appeared to be unconscious. First responders rushed to Northwest Paint Road just outside the town of Cache. There, they found the body of a young woman, dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
Deputies roped off the scene and began their investigation. It didn’t appear that the body had been there very long, perhaps only an hour or two. Paint Road was a three-mile rural stretch of pavement surrounded by farmland; it was very possible that no one had witnessed the woman being dumped in the middle of the road. However, deputies did their due diligence, knocking on the doors of the few nearby houses and interviewing residents.
The sheriff’s office put out a call to local news stations to spread the word of an unidentified body. Sheriff Kenny Stradley asked the public to call in with any information. “We are waiting right now for the medical examiner and we will continue to investigate. If anybody’s got a female early 20’s possibly missing please contact the Sheriff’s Department.”
A few miles away in Lawton, Renea Toahty was scrolling through Facebook when she saw a post about the woman on the road. On any other day she might have scrolled on by, but something in her gut told her that the woman was Ci’Lina. Renea had just talked to her daughter the day before, and Ci’Lina had been struggling. She’d asked Renea for money to buy food and to cover that month’s bills. Renea had agreed, and they exchanged “I love yous” before hanging up the phone. Now, Renea wondered if that would be the last time she heard her daughter’s voice.
She immediately tried calling Ci’Lina, but there was no answer. After several failed attempts, Renea decided to call the sheriff’s department. When she provided them with a description of Ci’Lina, they confirmed that the young woman could possibly be her daughter. Renea told KSWO that her entire world changed in that moment. “Disbelief… a pain like I have never felt before… I don’t know. I can’t describe it.”
Renea was asked to identify her daughter’s body, a task no mother should have to endure. Ci’Lina’s remains were then taken for autopsy. The medical examiner determined that she had been shot four times, once in the head. Her death was ruled a homicide.
With an official identification and cause of death, detectives were able to move forward with a homicide investigation. On the afternoon of January 16th, just hours after her body was found, Ci’Lina’s car was located in a Walmart parking lot on Sheridan Road in Lawton. This raised a new question: How had her body ended up 10 miles west of where her vehicle was parked?
Detectives pulled security camera footage from the Walmart and saw that Ci’Lina had been there at 5:45am on the 16th. According to the sheriff’s office, Ci’Lina was with people that she knew. Whether she had planned to meet them there or if they had just run into each other is unclear, but Ci’Lina left the store with them, getting into their vehicle instead of her own.
Detectives interviewed the people Ci’Lina had been with and identified them as persons of interest in the case, but they ran into one very big obstacle – the vehicle they had been driving was nowhere to be found. Sheriff Stradley told KJRH, “We’ve not been able to find the car. We’ve been looking for it, but we’ve not come up with it.”
Detectives interviewed dozens of people, anyone who had a connection to Ci’Lina. They also looked into the possibility that the home invasion three months prior could somehow be connected. But months passed with no answers, and Ci’Lina’s family had to push forward without her.
In May of 2017, they celebrated A’Liyah’s fourth birthday, her first without her mother. After the cake and presents, the family released balloons in memory of Ci’Lina. Renea told KSWO, “We just wanted her to know we are all still there looking for her, missing her, not giving up.”
In July, there was finally movement in the case. The sheriff’s office announced that a man named Darnell McDaniel was a person of interest in Ci’Lina’s murder. In August, McDaniel was arrested on unrelated charges, but three days later, the sheriff’s office stated that he was no longer considered a person of interest in Ci’Lina’s case. It seemed to be another dead end.
In 2019, two years after Ci’Lina’s murder, Sheriff Stradley told Texoma News Network that his detectives had not given up on solving the case, they just needed the right piece of information. “Everything that we get or hear, we run down. We’ve had a few people that we’ve talked to… They gave us some information, but we don’t have enough to put together. We have some people that we’re looking at pretty hard. We’re looking for a vehicle. But right now, we still have not got enough to get an arrest warrant.”
Another year passed, and Ci’Lina’s family still waited for answers. Renea told TNN that not having closure was devastating. “There’s no pain like it in the world. I wake up every morning remembering that my daughter is gone forever.”
A billboard with Ci’Lina’s picture and case information went up in Lawton with the hopes of bringing in more leads. Sheriff Stradley told TNN that he believed they knew who Ci’Lina’s murderer was, they just needed more evidence, and they needed the public’s help. “Step up. Give us a call. Tell us something. You don’t have to tell us your name. Just tell us something where we’ll have a place to work from.”
In December of 2021, the sheriff’s office requested help from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The additional resources could be key in solving the case. In August of 2022, the OSBI announced a $5,000 reward for information about Ci’Lina’s murder. But as of this recording, there have been no suspects named or arrests made in Ci’Lina’s case.
Oklahoma ranks among the top states for the amount of cases of missing and murdered indigenous women. The majority of these cases go unsolved, and some are ignored entirely. Ci’Lina Bell-Deloney deserves to be remembered, deserves to have justice. In the words of her niece Angelina, “A family never really recovers from an experience like this. We have lost a daughter, a sister, a mother, an auntie, and a niece. A person that we can never replace.”
Ci’Lina’s family is waiting for answers. If you have any information about the murder of Ci’Lina Bell-Deloney, please contact the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-522-8017 or via email at cold.case@osbi.ok.gov.