‘Big Horn’ exposes major tragedy
Television returns to “Yellowstone” and “Longmire” country. “Murder in Big Horn” (10 p.m. Sunday, Showtime, TV-MA) offers a three-part documentary look at an epidemic of murders, kidnapping and trafficking of indigenous women in Big Horn County, Montana, home to both Cheyenne and Crow Indian reservations.
The cases are presented in heartbreaking detail. We meet the parents and friends of murder victims, some as young as 14. The official indifference to this crimewave is simply breathtaking. When worried parents are informed that their daughter’s remains have been found within sight of the address of her last known whereabouts, local police and the medical examiner suggest she simply froze to death, a cause that doesn’t explain obvious bruising and wounds.
When another victim’s body is found in a yard near a busy highway, authorities suggest that the young woman crawled there to die. They proceed to cremate her remains against the wishes of the family and Crow traditions.
The focus soon pulls back to offer historical, social and even logistical reasons for this official lack of concern. The settlement described as “The Winning of the West” in many history books required the confinement of the Crow and other tribes, who used to hunt and travel over vast stretches of Western territory. Reservation life contributed to the culture of a defeated people, exacerbated by plentiful alcohol. More than a century of dysfunction has taken its toll.
To make matters more complicated, police jurisdictions are divided between local Montana state police — charged with policing the “American” population — and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), responsible for tribal law enforcement. If a murder takes place, state police respond only if they know the perpetrator is non-Indian. And how can they know that until they begin an investigation? So often, no action is taken.
Matters are compounded by more than a century of mistrust between tribes and state and federal authorities and the assumption by many that any and all crimes are committed by the “white man,” an attitude that can offer plenty of cover for local offenders. Add a local interstate and the freedom of tens of thousands of strangers to come and go, and you have a mystery with far too many suspects.
“Big Horn” was not made simply for binging. It uses a true-crime murder mystery hook to offer a sobering look at American history.
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› A woman with a memorable hairstyle blends religious hucksterism with diet advice in the true-life 2023 shocker “Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation” (8 p.m. Saturday, Lifetime, TV-14). The real-life Shamblin was the subject of a 2021 HBO Max five-part docuseries “The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin.” Shamblin and six members of her organization were killed in a plane crash that same year.
› Trevor Noah hosts the 65th Annual Grammy Awards (8 p.m. Sunday, CBS, TV-14), honoring the best musical recordings and artists of the past year. It is interesting to note that the Grammys will take place at the Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles.