A woman is found beaten in NE, and eventually passes away from her injuries Sherry Wounded Foot, a 50-year-old Native American woman from the Oglala Sioux tribe, was found unconscious behind the Lakota HOPE Ministry building in the border town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, on August 5, 2016. A mother and grandmother, she was known by her family as a tough, sweet, and generous woman with a feisty side. Emergency responders were called to the scene for an unresponsive person and initially did not suspect an assault.
She was transported to a hospital on the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
At the hospital, Wounded Foot suffered a seizure, which prompted medical staff to investigate further. A CT scan revealed internal bleeding in her head, a life-threatening injury that required immediate surgery. She was then airlifted to a hospital in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she underwent a brain operation. It was after her family learned of her hospitalization that they contacted law enforcement, suggesting she may have been the victim of a violent attack. Her injuries were later confirmed to be consistent with an assault. Despite the medical intervention, she never regained consciousness.
Twelve days after being found, on August 17, 2016, Sherry Wounded Foot died after her family made the difficult decision to remove her from life support. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head, and her death was ruled a possible homicide. The investigation into her death has been handled by the Sheridan County Sheriff's Office and the Nebraska State Patrol. However, her family has expressed the belief that law enforcement has not taken her case seriously.
To this day, the murder of Sherry Wounded Foot remains unsolved, and no arrests have been made. Investigators have considered various theories, including the possibility of domestic violence, as well as a report that she had been in a fight with another woman the day before she was found. Tragically, her brother had also been found beaten and lifeless in Whiteclay in 2012, a case that also remains unsolved. Activists have offered a reward for information that could lead to an arrest in Sherry's case, but so far, no one has been charged in connection with her death. Her daughter later filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging negligence on the part of the initial ambulance service and hospital staff for failing to recognize the severity of her head injury in a timely manner.
