Amanda Elaine Green was a 36-year-old female and Indigenous woman from Tacoma, Washington, who was last seen on May 15, 2021. Public missing-person records listed her disappearance from Tacoma on that date, and later news coverage described her as a pregnant member of the Cherokee Nation whose family reported her missing to the Tacoma Police Department in 2021.
Her case began with the fear and uncertainty that follows when a loved one vanishes without explanation: Amanda’s family was left searching for answers, trying to understand why she had disappeared and why the normal signs of life and contact had stopped. Authorities and public missing-person sources continued to identify Tacoma as the starting point of the case, while later investigative information pointed beyond the city and into Thurston County, where detectives came to believe Amanda had been killed in the Yelm area.
For several years, Amanda’s case remained unresolved. In 2022, Tacoma police provided information to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office suggesting that Amanda may have been murdered in the Yelm area, but investigators did not yet have enough evidence to make an arrest. That left the case in a painful state of suspension: there were leads, suspicions, and a person of interest, but not enough proof to bring the matter fully into court. During that time, Amanda’s family and community carried the burden of her absence while investigators worked with an incomplete picture of what had happened after she was last seen. The case also existed within the broader crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, a context that made the loss of Amanda especially resonant for those who understood how often Native women’s disappearances have gone unresolved or under-recognized.
A major break came in 2025, when Thurston County detectives renewed attention on the person of interest, identified in news reports as James Daniel Lewis. Investigators had previously looked at Lewis but, according to reporting, the evidence had not been sufficient for an arrest. After the case was reassigned and detectives reexamined it, new witness information helped move the investigation forward. KING 5 reported that one witness said Lewis had bragged about killing Amanda and claimed he had buried her in a shallow grave in Lewis County near Mount Rainier. Another witness, described as Lewis’s ex-girlfriend, reportedly told investigators that Lewis and Amanda argued, that she heard a single gunshot, and that she later found Amanda’s body. According to those court-document accounts, Lewis allegedly drove Amanda’s body to a wooded area far from where she was killed.
When investigators interviewed Lewis in September 2025, the case moved from suspicion toward recovery. Authorities said Lewis cooperated with detectives and led them to a shallow grave in Lewis County near Mount Rainier, where human remains were found. Early reports stated that investigators believed the remains belonged to Amanda, though some outlets noted at the time that formal positive identification was still pending. SFGATE reported that the recovery site was in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, outside the boundaries of Mount Rainier National Park, and that authorities believed the remains were those of Amanda and her unborn child. Public missing-person records later listed Amanda’s case as resolved after the discovery of the shallow grave and the arrest of the suspect. Official reports and public case updates indicate that Amanda Green was found deceased; where the exact date of death or recovery confirmation is not clearly stated in a final public identification record, the available information remains limited and should be understood with that caution.
Following the recovery, Lewis was arrested and booked into the Thurston County Jail on allegations including second-degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful disposal of human remains. FOX 13 reported that, according to court documents, Lewis admitted he got into an argument with Amanda in 2021, pulled out a gun, and fatally shot her; KING 5 reported that he first blamed another person before later admitting he was the one who shot her. The accounts also described allegations that efforts were made to conceal what happened and make Amanda’s death appear to be something else. At a court hearing, a judge found probable cause and ordered Lewis held without bail, while prosecutors were expected to proceed with formal charges. These court-stage details reflect allegations and investigative claims reported by law enforcement and media sources, and the legal process would determine the outcome of the criminal case.
Amanda Green’s case began as the disappearance of a 36-year-old woman from Tacoma on May 15, 2021, and ended years later with investigators locating remains in a shallow grave near Mount Rainier after renewed work on a cold case. It moved through long uncertainty, family grief, witness accounts, law-enforcement reassessment, and the eventual arrest of James Daniel Lewis in connection with her death. Amanda was more than a case file: she was a Native woman, a loved one, and, according to reporting, an expectant mother whose life was cut short and whose family endured years without answers. The overview of the case is that Amanda disappeared from Tacoma in 2021, investigators later developed information that she had been killed in the Yelm area, detectives renewed the investigation in 2025, a suspect led authorities to a burial site in Lewis County near Mount Rainier, and official reports indicate that Amanda Green was found deceased, with a suspect taken into custody in connection with her death.Last Seen: May 15, 2021
