For decades, the Bassett family searched for answers for their missing family member: Martha Bassett. Telegrams went unanswered, trips to Chicago and Seattle brought no clues and rumors faded to silence.
In 1968, an unidentified woman was found dead along Interstate 55 in Will County, Illinois. She was later buried as a Jane Doe.
The case would be revisited in 2009, but investigators were still unable to identify the woman. Later, in 2024, Bill Sheehan, a cold case investigator with the Will County Coroner’s Office, reexamined the case again.
Will County officials exhumed the Jane Doe’s remains and submitted new samples for DNA testing. This year, DNA results linked her to a Yakama Nation woman named Martha Bassett.
She was 32 years old when she was killed. According to the coroner’s office, her body showed signs of blunt-force trauma to the head and strangulation. She was found without clothing or personal belongings.
Before she was identified, investigators searched across the country for a match.
“We didn’t have much to go on. It took a while for the DNA profile to get back to us,” Sheehan said. “The best information that they were able to give us is that she was Native American.”
Sheehan contacted local tribes in the Illinois area but didn’t find a match. He began to think the woman might be from somewhere else. Genealogists working with the new sample identified a relative in Washington state.
With what Sheehan called “a little bit of luck,” the DNA connected the remains to the Bassett family.
A family reconnects to its past
For Asa Washines, the revelation was personal. Washines is the Yakama Nation tribal liaison for Washington's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force. This year, he discovered Bassett was his relative.
“I didn’t know I had a grandmother until my mom told me about Martha,” Washines said. “Then she told me about how, during the relocation period, she moved away to Chicago, and how she worked at a telegraph company.”
Under Yakama Nation tradition, Washines said siblings of grandparents are also acknowledged as grandparents. Bassett was his grandfather’s sister.
Bassett graduated from Wapato High School in 1955. She was born in Wapato on Jan. 3, 1936, to John and Ida Bassett.
After she graduated from high school, she attended Yakima Valley College. She studied English, shorthand typing and penmanship. Bassett then found a job as a teletype operator, a person who sends and receives typed messages over a teleprinter or teletype machine.
In 1957, Bassett moved from Washington to work in Chicago, influenced by the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. It was a federal effort to assimilate Native Americans into urban life, and it encouraged families to leave reservations for work in cities.
“This policy, this failed policy, still has these effects decades later,” Washines said. “In some instances, families never moved back to the reservation. They’re disconnected from their culture, from their traditions, from their land.”
The policy fractured some families and left many vulnerable. Washines said many Indigenous people went missing during that era, just like Bassett.
“This work here hits so close to home. People who remember her are few,” said Washines.
Bassett’s disappearance left a lasting impact on the family, he said. Relatives tried for years to contact her through telegrams and letters. Washines’ grandfather even traveled to Chicago to search for her.
The person responsible for her death has never been identified.
“The person who committed this crime was never held accountable,” Washines said. “Moving forward, the hope is that with current technology, DNA (and) forensics, people can be held accountable when it comes to Indigenous victims.”
Emily Washines, Asa’s cousin and a distant relative to Bassett, said the family reported Bassett as missing in 1968. However, she said there was no proper follow-up.
“The federal government was very reluctant to share any negative information by the mid-1960s about the relocation program because they didn't want negative attention for this assimilation,” she said.
Other cases
Bassett’s case drew support from multiple agencies, including forensic anthropologists from the University of Illinois' anthropology department, the University of Texas and the Smithsonian Institution.
The Washington state Attorney General’s Office also played a role in identifying Bassett. Brian George is the chief investigator for the office’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Cold Case Unit. He said Bassett’s identification underscores the need for strong record keeping.
“It’s important to keep early DNA samples, dental records and to enter missing person cases into national databases right away,” George said. “That wasn’t happening in the 1960s.”
George noted that the investigation of crimes involving tribal members often face jurisdictional complications, with responsibility divided between tribal, state and federal agencies.
The unit works with more than 25 active cases in Washington, providing investigative support and victim advocates for families.
According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a study from the National Institute of Justice found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime.
A homecoming after decades
Bassett’s remains were brought back to Washington over the summer.
Members of Pacific Savagez Motorcycle Club escorted Bassett from the airport in Seattle back to the Yakima Valley. She was honored with traditional services at the Toppenish Creek Longhouse and laid to rest at Union Gap Cemetery.
Her obituary remembered her as a proud Yakama Nation woman who loved photography, sewing and reading.
For Asa Washines, Bassett’s story is a reminder that answers can come decades later.
“ We're just like one case out of millions that's gonna have closure. We're fortunate enough to have closure, but there's a lot of families that just will never get it,” he said. “There’s a sliver of hope for other families. This is huge — to reclaim our people, our identity, our land.”
