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A family’s search for missing Oklahoma woman Aubrey Dameron has come to a tragic end.
On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, officials with the Quapaw Nation Marshal Service announced that human remains discovered five days earlier belonged to the missing 25-year-old. The discovery in rural Ottawa County marks nearly six years since Dameron was last seen in the early morning of March 9, 2019, walking away from her Grove, Oklahoma, home — about 90 miles northeast of Tulsa — in the heart of Cherokee Nation.
The case of Aubrey Dameron, who identified as a proud Two-Spirit member of the Cherokee tribe, helped highlight violence within the Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities, as previously covered by Oxygen.
The discovery of Aubrey Dameron’s remains
Before a positive identification was announced, local news outlets, including Pittsburg, Kansas, CBS affiliate KOAM-TV and Coffeyville, Kansas’s KGGF Radio, reported that a male and female pair came upon human remains while walking near a lagoon 50 feet from a road. The area was in proximity to the unincorporated town of Cardin, Oklahoma, part of the Tar Creek Superfund site and home to numerous abandoned lead mines.
Cardin and the Picher area were once thriving cities for the Tri-State lead and zinc-mining operations that spanned northeastern Oklahoma, southeastern Kansas, and southwestern Missouri. The vast area, comprising a handful of ghost towns, has been the focus of several high-profile cases over the years, including the 2018 murder of Missouri man Tyler Applebee and the 1999 disappearances of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman.
Cardin was officially closed in 2009; its last three residents left one year later, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Early reports by the aforementioned local outlets stated foul play was suspected upon the discovery of the remains. However, Quapaw officials said in their recent press release that an investigation into Dameron’s death is still ongoing.
Officials and loved ones speak out about Dameron’s death
Tribal Marshals responded to the scene near South 565 Road and East 30 Road north of Commerce, OK, according to Wednesday’s press release. Preliminary findings pointed to a male decedent (Dameron identified as a transgender woman) who was likely Native American or Hispanic, and “due to the condition of the remains, they appeared to have been at the location for an undetermined period of time.”
The Quapaw Nation Marshal Service Investigative Division is working closely with the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Missing and Murder Unit, and the FBI as the investigation continues.
A family-run Facebook page, Missing-Aubrey Dameron from Grove, Oklahoma, gave a brief statement following the press release, confirming the identification.
“Thank you to everyone who has helped along the way,” the post stated. “Please give us time to process at this time.”
One day earlier, before Quapaw’s press release, the page stated, “Our thoughts and prayers are with all the families who are still searching for their loved ones and/or seeking justice.”
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. also released a statement, referencing Dameron’s maternal aunt and uncle, Pam Smith and Christian Fencer, both of whom have long championed bringing Dameron home, including in interviews with Oxygen and a 2022 episode of the NBC podcast Dateline: Missing in America.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with her Aunt Pam and Uncle Christian, who always put Aubrey’s missing persons case, and all MMIP [Missing and Murdered Indigenous People] cases in the forefront where it belonged,” Hoskin stated, in part. “Aubrey, who was extremely proud of her Cherokee culture, had a bright future, and her young life was cut too short.”
Christian Fencer cited Dameron’s Cherokee pride when speaking to Oxygen in 2021, discussing the disparities in Indigenous and LGBTQ+ peoples.
“It’s high risk to be Native American. It’s high risk to be transgender,” Fencer said. “Aubrey was both those things, but she was both those things unapologetically.”
When did Aubrey Dameron disappear?
On March 9, 2019, at around 3:30 a.m., Dameron reportedly told her mother she had plans to meet someone before walking away from their Grove home in Delaware County, roughly 40 miles south of the ghost town where her body was later found. Dameron was last seen wearing all black, though it sounded as though she planned to return, loved ones stated.
“Aubrey was epileptic, and she was dependent on medication,” Smith previously told Oxygen. “Her medication was left, her purse was left, we have heard her phone was left.”
The aunt and uncle provided texts to Oxygen, which showed Dameron’s phone last pinged near the rural Grove home at 3:42 a.m. Searches, including one in which volunteers found what appeared to be a bloody sock near the home, yielded few solid leads over the years.
Former Captain Gayle Wells of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office previously told Oxygen that he and his team “made over 100 follow-up contacts” following Dameron’s disappearance while also referring to her “unique” and “high-risk” lifestyle.
Dameron’s loved ones have voiced frustration over a lack of answers. In 2022, Pam Smith told Oxygen it was “heartbreak, over and over.”
“There is hope we will have answers one day,” she said.
So far, an official cause and manner of death has not been released.
Anyone with information about Aubrey Dameron’s case is urged to contact the Quapaw Nation Marshal Service at (918) 238-3137 or the Miami Police Department’s Central Dispatch at (918) 542-5585.
