Aaron Leland Rivers Sr., 26, an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community, was last seen on May 21, 1994, working with another man, Fred Joe Walking Badger, on the construction of a Native American spiritual center in Wet Camp Village, on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Pinal County, Arizona. The two men left the worksite that afternoon to run a brief errand; Walking Badger's wife and Rivers's fiancée went home to prepare food, expecting the men back within the hour. Neither man returned. On or about June 10, 1994, roughly three weeks later, the vehicle the two had been riding in — a turquoise 1993 Pontiac Grand Am bearing Texas license plate 5D7-326 — was found abandoned and burned in a desert area near the Gila River. Rivers was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, gray shorts, white high-top Nike sneakers, and a navy blue bandana.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services, Missing and Murdered Unit, is the lead investigating agency. On December 15, 1999, more than five years after the men disappeared, human remains recovered from a body of water were identified as Walking Badger's through comparison of dental records, and his death has been classified as a homicide. Rivers has never been located and remains classified as an endangered missing person; no suspect has been publicly named and no persons of interest are identified in released case materials.
In July 2024 the FBI issued a Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) alert seeking public assistance in the case. Both the Walking Badger case (BIA case no. 1994-8) and the Rivers case (BIA case no. 1994-10) remain open. Anyone with information is asked to contact BIA Special Agent Aaron Summers at 1-833-560-2065 or ojs_mmu@bia.gov, text BIAMMU to 847411, or submit a tip to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov.
