It has been 115 days since 15-year-old Nevaeh Kingbird was last seen in Bemidji, Minnesota. On October 22, 2021, she vanished.
Nevaeh is Native American from the Red Lake Minnesota reservation, but was born and raised in Bemidji. Nevaeh’s mother, Teddi Wind, told Dateline that Nevaeh is the third oldest of her six children. “She loves her language, she speaks fluently in Ojibwe,” Teddi said.
Nevaeh’s paternal aunt, Flower Kingbird, told Dateline that Nevaeh has a lot of friends, but also loves spending time with her family. “She loved her family– her siblings,” Flower said. “She liked to be there to help take care of her youngest one.”
Nevaeh is just a freshman in high school, but Teddi told Dateline her daughter already had big dreams. “She wanted to go to college in Colorado when she graduated,” Teddi said. “She didn't know what she wanted to do yet. She just wanted to travel. She just wanted to, you know, go to college.” Nevaeh’s mother also mentioned her daughter’s artistic nature. “She paints, she uses pastels, and she draws,” Teddi said. “And she writes poems.”
According to her mother, Nevaeh had mental health issues and had been having a hard time in months before she vanished. Two of her friends had died by suicide in 2021 – one in April, the other a week before Nevaeh was last seen.
“I just put a lot of time and effort to protect her,” Teddi said. “I just wanted to hide her from the world. She's completely beautiful and I was afraid for her because of how beautiful she is.”
Teddi admitted that she is a strict parent. “I just didn't want nobody to take advantage of her,” Teddi said. “I put her in boxing. I put her in a self-defense course.”
Teddi was at work on October 22, 2021, when she called to check on Nevaeh. “She's like, ‘I love you, Mom. I miss you,’” Teddi told Dateline. “And she was slurring her words and I was like, ‘Are you OK?’” Nevaeh claimed to be fine, “but I could tell she wasn’t,” Teddi added.
Teddi told Dateline she left work and headed home to make sure her daughter really was OK. She said that when she got home, there were other people in the house. Teddi told them to leave, since they didn’t have permission to be there. “I end up turning around and leaving and going back into my truck and end up calling the police,” Teddi said.
Teddi waited in her truck until the police arrived. “We went back into the house and then Nevaeh wasn't there,” Teddi said. “Nevaeh and her cousin went out the back door.”
Teddi told Dateline that the police helped her remove the remaining teens from the house. Nevaeh didn’t come back.
When Nevaeh didn’t return, Teddi said she reported her daughter’s disappearance to the police.
In the days after she last saw Nevaeh, Teddi learned that one of her other children had COVID. “I was worried about Nevaeh having it when she left,” Teddi told Dateline. “Because she was having a runny nose and wasn’t feeling well the day before.”
Not long after, Teddi also got COVID. “I got really, really, really sick,” Teddi said. “Everybody in the house was sick, except my younger son.”
Once she had recovered, Teddi refocused her attention on finding Nevaeh. “I sent police officers to certain places where I thought she'd be at,” Teddi said. “I started trying to look for her myself on the internet. I messaged her accounts that I -- that she would message me from.” But Nevaeh never replied or even appeared to have seen the messages. It wasn’t just that her daughter hadn’t responded to her that worried Teddi. “I was really concerned because she hasn't been on social media, she hasn't contacted anybody,” Teddi said.
Nevaeh’s aunt, Flower, told Dateline she had spoken with some of Nevaeh’s friends, “They said that she was very active in a group chat between her and her friends,” Flower said. “And since then she hasn't had any contact or logged onto the chat.”
Teddi told Dateline Nevaeh had run off before. “She's bipolar, so she would get in her manic stage – sometimes she would take off on me,” she said. “But she would always keep contact with me.” Since that hasn’t happened, Teddi said she is really worried. “It's not like her to be gone this long,” Teddi said. “I just feel like nobody has taken it seriously.”
She doesn’t know where to turn. “I'm trying to get the right, correct resources. I'm trying to find my daughter. I'm trying to bring her home,” Teddi told Dateline. “I don't know if somebody took her. I don't know if somebody hurt her. I don't know anything.”
Dateline spoke with Detective Dan Seaberg of the Bemidji Police Department. “I came in later. I started looking -- looking at it about a month after she was reported to run away,” Detective Seaberg said. “I called her mother to see if she had heard from her and to see if she had returned home and her mother informed me that she had not and that she believed she was possibly with a few friends,” Seaberg said. “I then attempted to make contact with them and wasn't successful initially making contact.”
About a week after that, Detective Seaberg said he spoke with Teddi again to see if Nevaeh had reached out at all. “That's when she informed me that she hadn't and she was starting to get pretty concerned because she hadn't heard from Nevaeh at all during that time.” The detective added that authorities learned that after she left the house in October, Nevaeh “was at a friend's residence and then had left that friend's residence.”
Teddi told Dateline that some of the people at that residence told her son that Nevaeh had jumped out of a window and hit her head. According to that conversation, “she laid on the ground for a long time and then she ran off,” Teddi said. “And that was the last time anybody heard from her or even seen her.”
Detective Seaberg confirmed that Nevaeh’s phone was found at that house. The detective told Dateline that officials have followed up with everyone who was there that night.
“We've spoken to everyone that has been identified to us, at this point, as being present at the house the night she took off,” Detective Seaberg said. “And then also have spoken to some other friends and whatnot that she was close to.”
Officials conducted some initial searches there. “We did some ground searches, drone searches and canine searches in the immediate area where she was last seen,” Detective Seaberg said.
But they have had no success, so far. “There was some snow and stuff on the ground – so those searches are going to have to be redone once the snow has left,” Detective Seaberg said. “There's a couple other areas of interest obviously, but due to the amount of snow we have and how cold it's been here recently, we haven't done any further ground searches.”
The detective added that authorities will resume ground searches later in the spring, when some of the snow has melted.
Flower told Dateline that the family has continued to conduct searches of their own for her niece. “The MMIW 218 organization is also a huge help with the searches and getting the word out,” Flower said.
The MMIW 218 organization helped Flower start the “Bring Nevaeh Kingbird Home” page on Facebook, to share updates in the case and information about vigils and searches being conducted.
On Monday, February 14, 2022, the community came together for another search for Nevaeh. The event listing stated, “As you may know February 14th is a day that is dedicated to honor those that have been taken from us of and those that have not made it home. We invite you to help us honor and remember loved ones. There will be a gathering at Paul and Babe, Bemidji Waterfront where a program will take place starting at 11 am followed by a search for Nevaeh Kingbird.”
Flower told Dateline “there is a lot of, you know, people from our tribes that are stepping up and wanting to help.” But the Kingbird family recognizes the obstacles.
“It's just, you know, finding the time and being that it's cold and we got a lot of snow,” Flower said. “That kind of thing makes it kind of hard for people to come out and help with the search.”
Flower said Bemidji is not very big and they’ve only really searched in the immediate area. She said they did find a sweater, which belonged to Nevaeh’s grandmother, in a nearby swamp. They are not sure if Nevaeh was wearing it or how it got to the swamp. The family said they turned the sweater over to the police. Flower said that officials did use sonar in the swamp area but they “didn’t find anything or think that there was anything to it, you know, to make them search any further.”
When Dateline asked Detective Seaberg if authorities knew what Nevaeh was last seen wearing, he replied, “I've gotten conflicting information on that. So that's -- that's a question, at this time, that I'm not going to answer, just due to the investigation and, kind of, where our investigation is currently at. I'm not going to release that information.”
Nevaeh is 5’4” and weighs around 120 lbs. She has hair past her shoulders that Teddi said she dyed jet black on one side and added a blonde streak through it. “It’s called a skunk hairdo,” Teddi said. “She did it herself, but it looks really nice.” Nevaeh has a scar above her left eyebrow. “It kind of looks like she shaved it there, but it’s not. It’s just a scar – it’s a white scar,” Teddi said.
The Bemidji Police Department is the main investigating agency at this time, but has received assistance. “The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has been working with us side by side,” Detective Seaberg said. “The FBI has assisted on some stuff, due to the fact of the jurisdiction of Red Lake Indian Reservation being nearby.”
Detective Seaberg told Dateline, “At this point, I have no evidence of foul play,” but he encourages anyone with information to reach out to the Bemidji Police Department. “We're following up on all leads,” Detective Seaberg said. “If anyone has information – no matter how small they think it is – please reach out and provide it.”
If you have any information that can help bring Nevaeh home, please contact the Bemidji Police Department at (218) 333-9111 or submit an anonymous tip at Crime Stoppers of Minnesota.