Missing: Delema Lou Sits Poor
On February 20, 1974, 12-year-old Delema Lou Sits Poor—her family called her "Babe"—left her home near Oglala, South Dakota. It was literally subzero outside, but she and a friend decided to walk a back road to Manderson near the Red Cloud School. No public sources seem to indicate where they were so determined to get. Her friend turned back when her hands and feet started freezing. Babe didn’t. She was never seen again.
Enhanced photo of 12 year-old “Babe”.
Cue: seven days of searching, followed by 50 years of silence.
Her family reported her missing. Her cousin even resorted to calling the National Guard because the system, of course, was already failing her. There were tips—sightings of Babe in Denver, in Rosebud, on Pine Ridge with a man—but those were mostly ignored. Her dad died never knowing what happened. Her mother too. And despite a supposed reopening of her case in 2018, the FBI and BIA dropped off the radar harder than Babe did. She’s still not even listed in South Dakota’s missing person database. Let that sink in.
Babe was Lakota. She was smart. Funny. Loved Lynyrd Skynyrd on cassette and spoke fluent Lakota. She wore a white puffy jacket with brown stripes and bell-bottoms and left a hole in her family that never healed.
Her case isn’t cold, it’s frozen. If you know anything—even something you heard in a bar, or a rumor passed down—call the Oglala Sioux Police at 605-867-5111 or text 847411 to BIAMMU.
She deserves better. And we’re not letting her story fade quietly into the snow.
Age-progressed photo of Delema.