Benita Long: Missing from the System

Vanished Voices, The Overlooked · Apr 30, 2026 · 40m

Benita Desiree Long was 40 years old, a member of the Yakama Nation, and actively working toward sobriety when she was dropped off at the El Corral Motel in Toppenish, Washington, on March 26, 2022. She made one phone call to her sister afterward. Then silence.

For three years, her family searched, organized vigils, and called a police department that never called back. What they didn't know — what no one told them until a journalist uncovered it in 2025 — was that Benita's name had never been entered into NamUs, the federal database built specifically to match missing people with…