Justice in Big Horn: The Unanswered Death of Kaysera Stops Pretty Places
Justice in Big Horn: The Unanswered Death of Kaysera Stops Pretty Places
Justice didn't come when they found her body.
It still hasn't come now.
On a late August morning in 2019, the body of 18-year-old Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was discovered in a backyard in Hardin, Montana. Within days, law enforcement had strong reason to suspect it was her. Yet for nearly two weeks, her family kept searching-never told that their daughter and granddaughter was already lying in a county morgue.
Her death was labeled "suspicious," then filed away as "undetermined." No homicide charges. No clear cause. A rushed cremation pushed on a devastated family against cultural tradition. Years later, they would learn that part of her jawbone had been kept without their knowledge and quietly stored in official custody. When a felony criminal endangerment case was finally brought in 2025, it acknowledged danger to the girls who survived that night-but not to the one who ended up dead.
Justice in Big Horn: The Unanswered Death of Kaysera Stops Pretty Places is a victim-centered investigation into what happened before and after that backyard morning. True-crime author Linda Davidson follows Kaysera's last days at Crow Fair, the night on Rangeview Drive, the discovery of her body, and the agonizing years her family spent fighting to have her life-and death-taken seriously.
Inside, you'll find:
A clear, step-by-step reconstruction of Kaysera's final days and the night she ran toward the yard where she was later found
The thirteen-day delay before her family was notified, and how that decision shattered their trust
The coroner's dual role as death investigator and funeral-home owner, the push for cremation, and the later return of her jawbone
The "suspicious, undetermined" autopsy findings-and what that language means in practice
The 2025 felony criminal endangerment case against Natosi Summers, why Kaysera was not named as a legal victim, and what the probation sentence did (and did not) acknowledge
How her story fits into the wider crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in Montana and across the United States
This book does not claim to solve Kaysera's case. Instead, it asks why an 18-year-old Indigenous girl who filmed police brutality one week could be found dead in a neighbor's yard the next-and still not be granted a full, transparent homicide investigation.
For readers who want true crime that is deeply reported, emotionally honest, and focused on the people at the center of the story, Justice in Big Horn is both an indictment of a broken system and a testament to a family that refuses to stop saying her name.
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