Emily Suezanne Morgan, 23, a Choctaw Nation citizen and mother of one, was last seen with 24-year-old Totinika Doche Elix, of Oklahoma City, at a McDonald's restaurant in McAlester, Oklahoma, at approximately 11:15 p.m. on August 25, 2016. Early the next morning, August 26, 2016, the owner of a vacant property along U.S. Highway 270 in Bache, Oklahoma — roughly eight miles east of McAlester, in Pittsburg County — noticed an unfamiliar vehicle parked in the driveway and contacted the Pittsburg County Sheriff's Office. Responding deputies found Morgan and Elix inside the vehicle, a white 2012 Ford Fusion registered to Morgan, each having died of a gunshot wound to the head.
A passenger-side window had been broken, and the vehicle's keys were later found in the yard some distance from the car, which was locked; no firearm was recovered at the scene. Morgan, who had lived in the Talihina, Hugo, Norman, and Oklahoma City areas of Oklahoma, had recently taken a job with a real estate agent and was attending college; Elix, the eldest of nine siblings, was enrolled in nursing school and was the mother of two young children.
The Pittsburg County Sheriff's Office referred the case to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI), which has led the inquiry since 2016; it remains open and unsolved. The scene lies within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, and following the 2020 McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling on tribal criminal jurisdiction, the case has drawn additional tribal and federal attention.
In 2024 the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Missing and Murdered Unit joined the investigation, and in April 2025 the case was presented to the Vidocq Society, a Philadelphia-based cold-case consulting organization, reportedly the first Native American homicide case the society has reviewed. No suspect has been publicly named and no arrest has been made. The OSBI has offered a reward for information leading to an arrest, most recently reported at $10,000, an increase from an earlier $4,000 figure reported in 2018. Anyone with information is asked to contact the OSBI tip line at 1-800-522-8017 or cold.case@osbi.ok.gov, or the BIA Missing and Murdered Unit at 1-833-560-2065.
