Free Republic

A criminal complaint filed in federal court Wednesday offers new details about the kidnapping and killing of 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike. Authorities were led to Tom Begaye, 27, by a tip from one of his neighbors, according to the indictment. Begaye told authorities he was looking for a child to have sex with Monday afternoon and picked up Ashlynne and Ian Mike, who were playing in a ditch near their home. Ashlynne had injured her foot and agreed to get in Begaye’s car to get a ride. He took her to a desolate dirt road near the Ship Rock pinnacle, where...

When 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike and her 9-year-old brother stepped into a stranger’s van after being dropped off by a school bus Monday, they likely believed they were heading to see a movie. The stranger, it seems, had a more sinister plan. According to authorities, he abducted the children, and in a crime that shocked the entire Navajo Nation and surrounding communities, killed Ashlynne, leaving her body along a desolate dirt road that cuts through the desert near the towering rock monument that overlooks the town of Shiprock. Late Tuesday, the FBI arrested 27-year-old Tom Begaye, of Waterflow, N.M., in connection...