Category: Blaze Media
Stunned judge reveals fate of woman involved in deadly kidnapping of 2 young sisters found in a pit — 1 did not survive
Earlier this year, 34-year-old Victoria Cox — a mother of three — pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping after admitting to helping a friend abduct two children.
The friend in question is 38-year-old Daniel Callihan, a resident of Amite, Louisiana.
‘These acts you committed, do you understand how awful these acts were? You understand how innocent these two little girls were?’
On June 12, 2024, Callihan fatally stabbed a mother of two — Callie Brunett — more than 50 times in her home in Loranger, Louisiana, and then kidnapped Brunett’s two daughters, ages 4 and 6, according to court documents.
Indeed, Callihan stole the stabbing victim’s 2012 Chrysler vehicle, placed Brunett’s two daughters inside it, and eventually drove to Amite, court documents show. That’s where he picked up Cox.
Law enforcement tracked down the missing girls to a property in Jackson, Mississippi, where they made a ghastly discovery. Authorities on June 13, 2024, found the body of the 4-year-old girl in a “pit,” according to a statement last month from the United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana.
Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade described the crime scene as “sickening” and revealed that he “observed small cages” and “small wired enclosures,” which “led us to believe that it was a location where human trafficking probably could have happened,” People magazine reported.
The 6-year-old sister was found alive and immediately transported to a hospital; she has since been reunited with relatives.
After Callihan was arrested, he admitted to investigators that he stabbed to death the mother of the two girls and kidnapped them, the U.S. Attorney’s office stated. Callihan also confessed that he “smothered” the 4-year-old girl to death “by holding [her] closely against his chest,” according to People magazine.
‘At any point in your mind were you thinking about your children when you did this? And that didn’t cause you to stop?’
United States District Judge Lance M. Africk handed Callihan consecutive life sentences for kidnapping resulting in death and transporting a minor in interstate commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Authorities also determined that Cox was Callihan’s co-conspirator in the disturbing crimes.
While Callihan and Cox engaged in sexual battery against the 6-year-old girl, court docs said, the sexual battery charge was dropped.
Cox has three children of her own — ages 6, 8, and 9 — and during her sentencing hearing, a stunned Hinds County Circuit Judge Winston Kidd asked her how she, as a mother, could participate in such a vile act against young children, according to WLBT-TV.
“At any point in your mind were you thinking about your children when you did this? And that didn’t cause you to stop?” Kidd asked Cox.
Cox replied, “I tried, but I couldn’t.”
Cox added to the judge that Callihan had forced her to get high on drugs on the day of the kidnapping, according to WLBT, and that she had been out of rehab for just two days before the kidnapping.
Cox also claimed she “didn’t know” Callihan didn’t have “permission” to have the children, WLBT reported.
Cox told the courtroom, “If I could change it all, I would, but I can’t.”
The station added that Cox released a handwritten note in court requesting to plead guilty as quickly as possible.
Cox wrote, “I’ve been trying to get my attorney to come go over my plea deal with me, but he has failed to do so. I would like to accept it. Can you put me on the court docket?”
According to Court TV, Hinds County District Attorney Jody E. Owens II noted that his office had never witnessed that happen before — and said of Cox, “She realized, I believe, that this crime was so horrific that the atonement level has to start today.”
Indeed, Kidd told Cox, “These acts you committed, do you understand how awful these acts were? You understand how innocent these two little girls were? This is something you’re going to have a lot of time to think about.”
Kidd last week sentenced Cox to a pair of concurrent sentences: 40 years in prison on the murder charge and 25 years on the kidnapping charge, according to WWL-TV.
Cox had faced the possibility of a death sentence.
The Jackson Police Department did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.
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Giving Tuesday: 6 charities where your money makes a big difference
Today is Giving Tuesday — a day to think of those less fortunate, but also a reminder that charities want your money just as much as any for-profit brand, and many use the same polished tactics to get it.
The day itself is a sales pitch: created in 2012 as a feel-good counterweight to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but quickly dominated by big nonprofits with big marketing budgets. As philanthropy-sector insider Dave Moss writes, it was launched not by beneficiaries but by “representatives of corporate America, the public relations sphere, and/or enormous, already well-funded nonprofits.”
Just a reminder that sometimes it’s the scrappiest, more ‘unfashionable’ charities where your money will go the farthest.
The Wounded Warrior Project has mastered the Giving Tuesday playbook with emotional storytelling. But a 2016 CBS News investigation revealed millions spent on lavish staff conferences and travel, with a Senate review later finding that the charity had inflated its program-spending numbers by counting fundraising and PR as “veteran programs.”
The ASPCA is another case where glossy branding masks inefficiency. Despite its huge Giving Tuesday paw print, watchdogs say only a small share of its massive fundraising reaches animals in need, despite what its infamously maudlin ads suggest. Very little is granted to local SPCAs — which many donors assume they’re supporting — while the national group spends tens of millions on advertising and pays its CEO close to a million dollars a year.
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Michael Stewart/WireImage/Getty Images
Which is not to say you shouldn’t participate in Giving Tuesday. Just a reminder that sometimes it’s the scrappiest, more “unfashionable” charities where your money will go the farthest.
Here are six organizations doing the slow, unglamorous work of helping real American families, veterans, and workers.
1. The Ruth Institute
Mission: Promote and defend the traditional family; educate the public on marriage, sexual integrity, and the fallout of the sexual revolution.
The Ruth Institute isn’t shy about its worldview — or its conviction that a healthy society starts at home. If you want your donation to go toward shaping the cultural weather upstream of politics, this is the place.
Donate: https://ruthinstitute.org/donate/
2. Gary Sinise Foundation
Mission: Support America’s wounded veterans, Gold Star families, and first responders.
More than 30 years after playing wounded Vietnam vet Lieutenant Dan in “Forrest Gump,” Gary Sinise has quietly built one of the most trusted veterans’ charities in the country. Its work is extremely practical: specially adapted smart homes for wounded vets, emergency financial assistance, mental health support, community-building, and mobility programs. Few organizations deliver more hands-on, life-changing help.
Donate: https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/donate/
3. Farmer Veteran Coalition
Mission: Help veterans transition into careers in agriculture.
A perfect marriage of two underserved groups: rural America and former service members. FVC provides grants, training, equipment, and mentorship to vets who want to build careers in farming. It strengthens both individual livelihoods and America’s food supply.
Donate: https://farmvetco.org/donate/
4. Foundation for Rural Service
Mission: Strengthen the economic and social fabric of rural communities.
Millions of rural Americans get left out of every national conversation — and often out of basic services. FRS funds scholarships, rural broadband expansion, small-town revitalization, and educational programs.
Donate: https://www.frs.org/donate
5. Volunteers of America
Mission: Provide housing, addiction recovery, senior care, job training, and emergency services to vulnerable Americans.
One of the oldest faith-driven aid groups in America, VOA does the thankless work: shelters, recovery programs, support for disabled vets, senior care, and services for people re-entering society after incarceration. If you want your donation to translate quickly into beds, meals, care, and services, VOA is reliable.
Donate: https://www.voa.org/donate
6. mikeroweWORKS Foundation
Mission: Close the skills gap by supporting vocational training and America’s trades.
Mike Rowe has spent years reminding America that welders, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters don’t just keep civilization running — they are civilization. His foundation’s Work Ethic Scholarship Program helps people pay for trade school, buy tools, and get certified. A great way to invest directly in rebuilding the country’s working-class backbone.
Guillermo del Toro stops awards show music to drop ‘F**k AI’ bomb
Three-time Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro had strong words about using humans in the production of his latest film.
Del Toro, a writer and director behind films like “Pacific Rim,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “The Hobbit” movies, was honored with a tribute award recently at the 2025 Gotham Film Awards.
‘Every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans for humans.’
Del Toro accepted the award alongside actors Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi for their work on the 2025 film “Frankenstein.”
Del Toro made several emotional comments dating back to when he first read the book that inspired his movie at age 11, before Isaac attempted to turn the acceptance speech into one about diversity and immigration.
“I am proud to be standing here tonight. … Immigrants, baby. We get the job done,” Isaac exclaimed. He is Guatemalan, Elordi is Australian, and del Toro is Mexican.
Elordi then spoke, but neither he nor del Toro added to Isaac’s remarks. Soon, music started to play, and the production looked to the next award. That was until del Toro interrupted, deciding that he wanted to add opinionated remarks of his own.
“No, no, no, wait!” del Toro interrupted. “I would like to tell to the rest of our extraordinary cast and our crew that the artistry of all of them shines on every single frame of this film that was willfully made by humans for humans.”
“The designers, builders, makeup, wardrobe team, cinematographers, composers, editors,” he continued. “This tribute belongs to all of them. And I would like to extend our gratitude and say —” del Toro then paused, seemingly wondering if he should continue.
“F**k AI,” he added with a smile.
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During his acceptance speech, del Toro spoke on the inspiration he drew from Mary Shelley, the original author of “Frankenstein.”
“Mary Shelley, who made the book her biography, she was 18 years old when she wrote the book and posed the urgent questions: Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? And where am I going?” del Toro explained. “She presented them with such urgency that they are alive 200 years later through this incredible parable that shaped my life since I first read it in childhood at age 11.”
Much of del Toro’s appeal comes from his ability to explore complex emotional topics from a unique viewpoints, and those unique thoughts typically come across whenever he is given the chance to speak. Del Toro told the award-show audience that even at a young age, he knew he “did not belong in the world the way my parents, the way the world expected me to fit.”
“My place was in a faraway land inhabited only by monsters and misfits.”
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This outlook definitely falls in line with his recent work, including when he appeared in the recent video game series Death Stranding.
Working alongside iconic game developer Hideo Kojima, del Toro delivered storylines about life, death, and emotional connection, but this time as an actor.
Speaking on the games, del Toro said he believes in the importance of “paradoxical creation” and said it is “essential to art.”
The beauty of the game, he added, was that Kojima had both “the weirdest mind and the most wholesome mind,” which shaped his storytelling.
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Macaulay Culkin just revealed his secret plot for another ‘Home Alone’ movie
Beloved former child star Macaulay Culkin revealed he has an “elevator pitch” idea about another possible “Home Alone” movie.
Culkin is currently making the rounds on his “A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin” tour and revealed during a recent stop that — unlike “Home Alone” director Chris Columbus — he is not opposed to doing a sequel to the Christmas movie.
‘I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.’
Culkin admitted he “wouldn’t be completely allergic” to reprising his role as Kevin McCallister, Variety reported, but said any form of a sequel would “have to be just right.”
At that point, the 45-year-old divulged he “kind of had this idea” on how a new movie could play out.
Like father, like son?
“I’m either a widower or a divorcee. I’m raising a kid and all that stuff. I’m working really hard, and I’m not really paying enough attention, and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me, and then I get locked out. [Kevin’s son] won’t let me in … and he’s the one setting traps for me,” the actor explained.
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(Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The star said that the iconic “Home Alone” house would be “some sort of metaphor for” the relationship between him and his son, with his character trying to “get let back into son’s heart.”
He added, “That’s the closest elevator pitch that I have. I’m not completely allergic to it, the right thing.”
Keep the change
The comments are the latest sign that the once publicity-shy Culkin has embraced his child-star past.
In 2018, Culkin became Kevin for a Google Assistant ad, using the app to make purchases and manage the thermostat in his house.
Culkin also appeared in a series of videos for YouTube channel Cinemassacre around that same time, playing and reviewing the video games that featured his on-screen characters.
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‘That thing I did’
In 2025, Culkin said that he has been showing his own children his old movies recently and that he was no longer bothered by the idea that his films are still popular.
“I think for a while, you know, when you’re a teenager and [in] your 20s and stuff like that, it’s like, ‘Ah, just they keep on talking about that thing I did.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Oh! They’re still talking about that thing I did.’ … I enjoy my legacy,” he told Yahoo Entertainment.
For Christmas season 2025, Culkin also paid homage to his “Home Alone” role in a commercial for an in-home care service.
1990’s “Home Alone” and 1992’s “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” have grossed more than $450 million over their lifespan.
“Home Alone 3,” which did not feature Culkin, grossed just $30 million.
‘Children Died’ And 20 Other Shocking Things An FDA Scientist Just Said About Covid Shots
‘Like many academic physicians, we felt the FDA and CDC abdicated their duty to the American people,’ Prasad wrote.
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‘The AI does not get tired’
‘Assets of fear’: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink FLIPS on crypto
BlackRock’s CEO has seemingly changed his mind about the future of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Investor Larry Fink famously criticized Bitcoin in 2017 when he called it an “index of money laundering” that simply showed how much demand there was in the world to launder funds.
‘I do see more and more of a future of having more and more financial assets being digitized.’
Now, during a sit-down with the CEO of hedge fund Citadel, Ken Griffin, Fink said he sees cryptocurrency wallets being used to make stock moves en masse in the near future.
Fink revealed during the conference that if he could “tokenize” all ETFs and provide them in a digital wallet, users would be able to seamlessly make trades.
“You could seamlessly, without fees, … buy bond or stocks, and I believe that is going to be the future,” Fink said. “I do believe more transactions [are] going to be done digitally with authentication of ownership.”
He added, “I do see more and more of a future of having more and more financial assets being digitized, sitting in a singularity of a blockchain and going from cash to stocks to bonds, back and forth, doing that seamlessly, and I do believe that is going to happen sooner, not later.”
During the same event, Fink described Bitcoin as an investment made out of fear, but not in the way one might think.
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Fink described Bitcoin and gold along similar lines, calling them “assets of fear” that investors scoop up when they are “frightened of the debasement of your currency.”
“You own it if you have financial insecurities, or you own it if you have physical insecurities and worries. So, that’s one of the foundational issues of my journey in understanding crypto more.”
Fink has confused audiences over the years with his remarks on digital currency, both in his evolving stance on the asset and, of course, his — along with other major institutions — apparent inability to recognize that it is in fact being used as he prophesies it will be used in the future.
Fink’s pontifications about the future of crypto, fiat, ETFs, and stocks/bonds being traded seamlessly on apps are already a reality. Countless companies allow direct deposit of paychecks to digital wallets, the same as any bank, while also providing the ability to trade stocks and cryptocurrency in-house.
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French President Emmanuel Macron, left, and Larry Fink. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
It is unclear if BlackRock’s plan was to slow-walk its investors into cryptocurrency cautiously, but its CEO has certainly made gradual strides in the direction of acceptance, hallmarked by his most recent comments.
In 2024, Fink seemed to turn a new leaf when he admitted he was wrong about Bitcoin and told CNBC he thought it had become a legitimate asset.
“It is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to maybe have uncorrelated type of returns. I believe it is an instrument that you invest in when you’re more frightened, though. It is an instrument when you believe countries are debasing their currency by excess deficits, and some countries are,” Fink explained.
Moreover, the CEO even referred to Bitcoin as “digital gold,” which is now in step with his recent description of the asset.
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Trump warns Israel about interference in Syria after deadly raid, airstrikes
The Trump administration has worked diligently to help stabilize Syria in the wake of its December 2024 conquest by Islamic terrorists.
The administration has, for instance, removed sanctions and dropped the $10 million bounty on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist who is also known as Muhammad al-Jawlani; terminated the Syria sanctions program; revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation of al-Sharaa’s terrorist organizations al-Nusrah Front and HTS on July 8; and flooded parts of the war-torn country with humanitarian aid.
The recent Israeli attacks in the south of the country have prompted concerns among some in the administration, including the president, about the tenability of sustained peace in the region.
‘We are trying to tell Bibi he has to stop this.’
President Donald Trump reiterated his support for al-Sharaa on Monday and suggested that Israel should refrain from further interference.
“The United States is very satisfied with the results displayed, through hard work and determination, in the Country of Syria,” wrote the president. “We are doing everything within our power to make sure the Government of Syria continues to do what was intended, which is substantial, in order to build a true and prosperous Country.”
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President Donald Trump shaking hands with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Photo by Syrian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty Images
“It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State,” continued Trump. “The new President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is working diligently to make sure good things happen, and that both Syria and Israel will have a long and prosperous relationship together.”
Two senior U.S. officials reportedly told Axios that the administration is concerned that repeated strikes inside Syria — including Israel’s bombing of Syrian forces in July — serve to undermine hopes of an Israel-Syria security agreement.
Israeli troops reportedly killed 13 people, injured dozens, and arrested several individuals during a raid in Southern Syria on Friday, some footage of which Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adrae shared online.
The Israel Defense Forces indicated that the purpose of the operation was “to apprehend suspects from the Jaama Islamiya terrorist organization operating in the Beit Jinn area of southern Syria” and claimed that “during the activity several armed terrorists opened fire at the troops. IDF soldiers responded with live fire, supported by aerial assistance.”
The Syrian foreign ministry characterized the attack as a “full-fledged war crime” and claimed that the raid and corresponding airstrikes left more than 10 civilians dead including women and children.
Walid Akasha, a local official in the area, told Reuters, “We’re a peaceful, civilian population, farmers. We have a legitimate right to defend ourselves. We didn’t attack them first — they came onto our land.”
One of the U.S. officials told Axios, “The Syrians were going nuts. Their own constituents demanded retaliation because Syrian civilians were killed.”
According to the officials, Israel neglected to notify the White House or Syria of the operation in advance.
“We are trying to tell Bibi he has to stop this because if it continues he will self-destruct — miss a huge diplomatic opportunity and turn the new Syrian government to an enemy,” said one official, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu praised the Israeli soldiers involved in the Friday raid and noted in a statement on Tuesday, “After October 7th, we are determined to defend our communities on our borders, including the northern border, and to prevent the entrenchment of terrorists and hostile actions against us, to protect our Druze allies, and to ensure that the State of Israel is safe from ground attack and other attacks from the border areas.”
“What we expect Syria to do, of course, is to establish a demilitarized buffer zone from Damascus to the buffer zone area, including, of course, the approaches to Mount Hermon and the summit of Mount Hermon,” continued Netanyahu. “We hold these territories to ensure the security of the citizens of Israel, and that is what obligates us.”
The prime minister suggested further that in a “good spirit and understanding of these principles, it is also possible to reach an agreement with the Syrians.”
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Suspect in Guardsmen shooting tied to Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome
The Afghan national suspected of the atrocious shooting of National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe was shockingly brought to the United States as a part of President Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome.
“We didn’t just evacuate our allies. … The United States government evacuated anyone they could grab in the chaos, because chaos is the oldest enemy of truth. We opened up floodgates. Tens of thousands of people we didn’t know, nobody really vetted, nobody could verify, nobody could fully account for,” Blaze media co-founder Glenn Beck says.
“Even today, we don’t know where they are. And that’s not xenophobia. That’s not fearmongering. That’s the Department of Homeland Security’s own inspector general saying that. Quote, ‘We don’t know who many of these people are,’ end quote,” he continues.
“Think about the histories of nations who forgot the simple duty of understanding who they bring inside the gates. When that happens, the country is over. Rome did it. The Byzantine Empire did it. Europe did it before the migrant crisis. And now in 2021, we did it as well,” he adds.
The problem, of course, is that the United States welcomed strangers from a patriarchal, war-torn, tribal system into the country without so much as a second look.
“Imagine going from Afghanistan to Chicago. How do you survive in that?” Glenn asks.
“That’s the fault of our federal government — a government that just threw them and us into a social experiment overnight without even thinking about it, talking about it, just saying, ‘Accept it,’” he continues.
However, most Americans, including the mainstream media, refuse to point this out.
“We’re living in a time when people saying the truth, you know — you acknowledge reality? And you get labeled. You notice patterns? Oh, my gosh, you’re silenced. You ask responsible questions? You’re accused of bigotry,” Glenn says. “Truth doesn’t care about the labels.”
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Here are North America’s top 5 fake Indians
The post-colonial grievance industry successfully infected the worlds of academia, entertainment, and politics over the past century with its anti-Western brand of revisionist victim politics. As a result, various middling individuals who were not personally injured by perceived historical injustices found it possible and even lucrative to exploit the guilt of the faultless many.
Following the recent revelation that the Sacramento native dubbed by Canadian state media as “one of the most influential indigenous writers and scholars of his generation” was never an Indian to begin with, Blaze News has finalized its top-five list of fake Indians in North America.
1. Thomas King
Since obtaining his doctorate in English/American studies from the University of Utah in the late 1980s, Sacramento-born Thomas King has made his supposed Cherokee heritage the center of his identity and output.
He taught native studies courses across the United States and Canada; lectured extensively on the subject of Native American identity, rights, history, and grievances; penned numerous books on theme, including “The Inconvenient Indian,” “The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative,” and “A Short History of Indians in Canada”; had a comedy radio show on Canadian state radio where he periodically mocked white people and their supposed misconceptions about Indians; and spent decades engaged in Indian-related political activism.
For his efforts, King has been showered with numerous lucrative awards — including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award — and government grants. He was not only made a member of the Order of Canada but promoted to companion of the Order of Canada for exposing “the hard truths of the injustices of the indigenous peoples of North America.”
The 82-year-old writer turns out to have been of European stock all along.
Late last month, King, whose mother’s side of the family is Greek, told the Globe and Mail that in a Nov. 13 meeting with the director of the North Carolina-based Cherokee group Tribal Alliance Against Frauds and a supposedly Indian professor at the University of British Columbia, he was confronted with genealogical evidence indicating there was no Cherokee ancestry on either side of his family.
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Thomas King, an influential writer of European heritage. Photo by Ulf Andersen/Getty Images.
“I didn’t know I didn’t have Cherokee on my father’s side of the family until I saw the genealogical evidence,” said King. “As soon as I saw it, I was fairly sure it was accurate. It’s pretty clear.”
‘Indians don’t cry.’
King indicated he had previously heard rumors that he was not an Indian but that nothing came of them.
“No Cherokee on the King side. No Cherokee on the Hunt side. No Indians anywhere to be found,” King subsequently noted in an op-ed. “At 82, I feel as though I’ve been ripped in half, a one-legged man in a two-legged story. Not the Indian I had in mind. Not an Indian at all.”
2. Iron Eyes Cody
The group Keep America Beautiful’s iconic “Crying Indian” anti-litter public service announcement, which debuted on television in 1971, shows a supposed Indian, Iron Eyes Cody, dressed in beaded moccasins and buck-skin attire paddling his canoe down a river, past a dockyard, and onto a beach covered in garbage, where he sheds a tear at the sight of a vehicle passenger throwing a paper bag full of fast food out a car window.
This was hardly the first or only time Cody wore his feathers in front of cameras.
Iron Eyes Cody with President Jimmy Carter. Getty Images.
Cody, who the New York Times indicated initially resisted doing the commercial because “Indians don’t cry,” played an American Indian in numerous movies, engaged in Indian-related activism, and long maintained that he was the genuine article.
Although Cody claimed he was born in Oklahoma territory to a Cherokee Indian father and a Cree mother, he was in fact the son of Italian immigrants, Francesca Salpietra and Antonio DeCorti, who arrived in the U.S. two years before his birth in Louisiana. His original name was Espera DeCorti.
According to Snopes, he changed his name from DeCorti to Cody after moving to Hollywood in the 1920s and began masquerading as an American Indian.
3. Sacheen Littlefeather
Sacheen Littlefeather, Marlon Brando’s stand-in at the 1973 Academy Awards, refused the Oscar for Best Actor on behalf of the “Godfather” star, citing “the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry … and on television in movie re-runs, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.”
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Sacheen Littlefeather. Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.
Throughout her life, Littlefeather claimed that she was an Apache Indian. Her sisters revealed, however, that Littlefeather, who died in October 2022, was the daughter of a Spanish-American and a woman of European descent.
The activist’s real name was Marie Louise Cruz.
‘Being Native American has been part of my story, I guess.’
Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Navajo Nation who undertook genealogical research for Cruz’s sister, reportedly found that “all of the family’s cousins, great-aunts, uncles, and grandparents going back to about 1880 (when their direct ancestors crossed the border from Mexico) identified as white, Caucasian, and Mexican on key legal documents in the United States.”
4. Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie is an Academy Award-winning folk singer who has claimed Native American heritage since the early 1960s.
In her agitprop and activism, Sainte-Marie has spoken from what Teen Vogue called an “indigenous perspective,” repeatedly condemning colonization and referring to America’s founding and the supposed erasure of American Indians as “genocide.” She also has touted herself as a “survivor” of an allegedly racist government welfare program that placed certain Native American kids in foster homes.
After five decades of claiming to have Indian heritage — at one stage claiming she was a “full-blooded Algonquin Indian,” at another that she was “half-Micmac by birth,” and finally that she was Cree, born on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan — she was outed by Canadian state media as a fraud.
Documents obtained by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, including her birth certificate, revealed that Buffy Sainte-Marie was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts; that her original name was Beverly Jean Santamaria; and that her parents were Albert and Winifred Santamaria, who were of Italian and English backgrounds, respectively.
The singer’s sister stated, “She’s clearly not indigenous or Native American.”
Sainte-Marie, who like Thomas King had been made a member of the Order of Canada, had her membership revoked after it was revealed she was another fake Indian. She was also stripped of her Juno Awards and Polaris Music Prizes, although she was reportedly able to keep the substantial cash prizes they came with.
5. Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is another affluent liberal woman who masqueraded for decades as an American Indian for apparent personal gain, going so far as to contribute five recipes to a 1984 cookbook characterized as “recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families” called “Pow Wow Chow.“
Warren told reporters in 2012, “Being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born.”
While working at the University of Texas School of Law, Warren not only claimed “American Indian” status on her State Bar of Texas registration card but listed herself in the Association of American Law Schools annual directory as a minority law professor. Since she did not bother correcting her minority identification after the release of the 1986-1987 edition, it appeared that way in the next eight editions, reported the Boston Globe.
Just after she began formally identifying as a minority in the late 1980s, Warren landed a full-time job offer from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Three years after securing the job, university records reportedly indicated that Warren leaned on the university to ensure that her ethnicity was listed as “Native American” instead of “white.”
Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
UPenn’s April 2005 Minority Equity Report clearly lists Warren was a “minority.” According to the Boston Globe, for at least three of the years Warren taught at the law school, she was listed as the solitary American Indian female professor.
In the 1990s, Warren moved on to work at Harvard Law School, which was sure to note her supposedly Indian heritage. The Globe indicated that Harvard Law School used Warren’s fake minority status to justify not hiring more minorities.
‘I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as native my whole life.’
In 2018, President Donald Trump, who had long derided Warren as “Pocahontas,” challenged the senator to get a DNA test to prove she was Native American. The test results came back showing that she was only 1/1,024th Native American if at all.
When Warren ran unsuccessfully for president in 2020, over 200 Cherokee and other Native Americans signed an open letter to the senator noting, “Whatever your intentions, your actions have normalized white people claiming to be native, and perpetuated a dangerous misunderstanding of tribal sovereignty. Your actions do not exist in a vacuum but are part of a long and violent history.”
Dishonorable mentions
Among the others who have benefited greatly from pretending to be Indians are:
- Jamake Highwater was an award-winning writer and journalist who penned over 30 books, including “Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey” and “The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America,” usually from an American Indian perspective. Highwater led the public to believe that he was born to an illiterate Blackfoot mother and a Cherokee father, who dumped him in an orphanage, where a couple in Southern California picked him up and raised him. However, Assiniboine activist Hank Adams and Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson exposed Highwater as another fraud. Highwater’s original name was Jackie Marks. He was apparently the Jewish son of a Russian mother and a father of Eastern European descent who worked as an actor in Hollywood.
- Elizabeth Hoover is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who long claimed to be of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq descent. Hoover admitted in May 2023, “I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as native my whole life.” The Berkeley professor confirmed that had she not been “perceived as a native scholar,” she may not have received some academic fellowships, opportunities, and material benefits. Despite admitting to causing harm and benefiting from her fraudulent identity, she did not resign.
- Heather Rae is an award-winning producer who served on the Academy of Motion Pictures’ Indigenous Alliance and previously led the Sundance Institute’s Native American program. She was accused by the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds in 2023 of lying about being Cherokee. Rae told the Hollywood Reporter in a puff piece that appeared to vex the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, “I think there’s a lot of nuance to this identity.”
- Joseph Boyden is a prominent Canadian novelist who was regarded at one point as “arguably the most celebrated indigenous author in Canadian history.” His writing largely centered on Indian characters and their experiences. Boyden, the recipient of numerous awards and grants, claimed over the years that there was Métis, Mi’kmaq, Ojibway, and/or Nipmuc blood in his family’s mix. In one instance, when buying a significant portion of land, he reportedly claimed to be Metis and showed a photocopied tribal card. When he was first exposed as another fraud in 2016, he claimed that his family’s Indian roots had been “whitewashed” due “to the destructive influences of colonialism.” While Boyden later admitted he was a “white kid from Willowdale,” he maintained that he had “native roots” on his Irish Catholic father’s side as well as on his mother’s side.
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