In the early hours of June 15, 2021, Ella Mae Begay’s daughter woke to the sound of someone breaking into her home in Sweetwater, Arizona — a small, remote community on the Navajo Nation near the Four Corners. She watched the intruder rummage through her belongings, take a few drinks, and leave on foot, walking in the direction of her mother’s house nearby.
She called 911.
No one came.
Some time later, she noticed something that didn’t make sense: her mother’s truck, pulling out of the driveway well before sunrise. Ella Mae, then 62, was known for being careful — she didn’t drive after dark. When her daughter couldn’t reach her by phone, she called 911 a second time. Officers arrived about twenty minutes later. By then, the house was quiet, the truck was gone, and so was Ella Mae.
Five years later, neither has ever been found.
Who Was Ella Mae
Ella Mae Begay lived in Sweetwater — Tòlikan, in Navajo — spending her days visiting relatives and weaving. She was known across the region as a master of pictorial Navajo rugs, the kind that tell a story rather than simply repeat a pattern, and sold her work to local trading posts. She was a grandmother of nine and a mother of three. Her oldest, Gerald, had moved to Denver for work but stayed close with his mother by phone. Three days before she disappeared, the two talked for forty-five minutes. She sounded happy, making plans for Gerald to bring his kids out that summer to see her.
He didn’t know it yet, but it would be the last time he heard her voice.
Identifying a Suspect
Within days, Navajo Nation police identified a person of interest: Preston Henry Tolth, whose father was dating Ella Mae’s sister. He denied any involvement when first questioned.
Investigators eventually secured a confession — but under circumstances that would later unravel the case. An FBI agent told Tolth, falsely, that police had already found Ella Mae’s truck and had evidence tying him to it. Tolth waived his right to remain silent and admitted to striking Ella Mae, leaving her on the roadside, and driving off in her truck. Years later, in 2025, a federal appeals court would rule that confession inadmissible, finding the agent had unlawfully overridden Tolth’s earlier decision to stay silent.
What remained was physical evidence: shoe prints matching Tolth’s found between the two homes, and bloody clothing recovered at a relative’s house. It was enough to keep him identified as a person of interest — but not enough for an arrest until 2023.
A Family Takes It Public
While the case moved slowly, Ella Mae’s niece, Seraphine Warren, refused to let it disappear quietly. In June 2022, on the one-year anniversary of her aunt’s disappearance, she walked 120 miles from Sweetwater to Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation. That same summer, she set out again — this time walking 2,400 miles from Sweetwater to Washington, D.C.
She funded search equipment through Venmo and GoFundMe, met with Department of Justice and Department of Interior officials, and sat down with then–Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. She was open about the contrast between her aunt’s case and that of Gabby Petito, whose disappearance drew national headlines the same year Ella Mae vanished. It took the FBI until November 2022 — a year and a half after Ella Mae went missing — to offer a reward for information: $5,000.
The Legal Battle
Tolth was finally arrested in April 2023 and indicted on charges of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, together carrying a maximum of 35 years. A trial was set, then delayed — and then came the ruling that threw out his confession, leaving prosecutors to build their case on physical evidence alone.
In January 2026, Tolth pleaded guilty to a single count of robbery, an agreement that would have released him with no additional prison time. Ella Mae’s family objected forcefully in court, and in a rare move, the judge rejected the deal as too lenient. A week later, Tolth entered a second plea — this time facing up to five years, with the assault charge dropped and protection from any future murder or manslaughter charge in connection with Ella Mae’s case. The judge accepted it on May 8, 2026.
Where Things Stand
Tolth was released from federal prison on June 18, 2026 — five years, almost to the day, after Ella Mae disappeared. Her family, who expected him to remain in custody until 2028, learned of the release only after the fact.
Ella Mae Begay has never been found. No homicide charge was ever filed. The Navajo Nation’s public safety director has said finding her remains a priority, but as long as the federal investigation stays open, tribal police don’t have full access to the information gathered under it.
A Larger Pattern
Ella Mae’s case sits within a much larger crisis. Somewhere between 78 and 82 people are currently listed as missing from the Navajo Nation alone, some dating back to the 1970s. Indigenous women face murder rates that are, in some counties, ten times the national average — and research shows they are both less likely to receive media coverage and less likely to be found quickly than other missing people in the same state.
In an unusual twist, Ella Mae’s case broke through in a way most cases like hers don’t — reaching newspapers from Alaska to Kentucky to Indiana, largely because one family member turned her grief into 2,400 miles on foot. That reach is worth noting. It’s also worth asking what it says about the cases that never get that far.
If you have any information related to Ella Mae Begay’s disappearance, please contact the Navajo Police Department or the FBI.
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Resources:
Note: Several Associated Press wire stories were syndicated across multiple outlets during research. Where a story appeared in more than one publication, the earliest or most complete version is cited below; syndicated reprints consulted are noted in brackets.
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