Boyfriend of Navajo Woman Sentenced to Life in Prison in Her Killing

Boyfriend of Navajo Woman Sentenced to Life in Prison in Her Killing
FILE - Red skirts are on display at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, May 5, 2021, to raise awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. AP Photo/Cheyanne Mumphrey, File
The Associated Press
Updated:
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PHOENIX—After family members of a slain Navajo woman described their grief in a federal courtroom, the judge on Monday sentenced her boyfriend to life imprisonment for first-degree murder in a case that became emblematic of what officials call an epidemic of missing and slain Indigenous women.

Five years after Jaime Yazzie was killed, her relatives and friends cheered as they streamed out of the downtown Phoenix courthouse after U.S. District Court Judge Douglas L. Rayas handed down the sentence for Tre C. James.