Aaron Leland Rivers Sr.

• Missing Since 05/21/1994
• Missing From Wet Camp Village, Arizona
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Male
• Race Native American
• Age 26 years old
• Height and Weight 5'10, 230 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A white t-shirt, gray shorts, white high-top Nike sneakers and a navy blue bandana.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Native American male. Black hair, brown eyes. Rivers is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community of the Gila River Indian Reservation. He has one pierced ear and has the following tattoos: a teardrop under his left eye, a Native woman on his left forearm, a spider on his right hand, a band of barbed wire around his wright wrist, spiders on the back of his right arm, and a large tattoo on his right forearm. Photos of some of his tattoos are posted with this case summary.

Details of Disappearance

Rivers was last seen working on building a Native American spiritual center in Wet Camp Village, Arizona, on the Gila River Indian Reservation, on May 21, 1994. He was working with another man, Fred Joe Walking Badger.

A photo of Walking Badger is posted with this case summary. He was also a Gila River Indian and noted for his political activism and advocacy for Native American rights. Most recently he had been making efforts to limit crop-dusting on the reservation. Rivers's fiancee stated Rivers had known Walking Badger for about three months and greatly admired him.

Walking Badger's wife and Rivers's fiancee went home to make sandwiches, expecting the men to be there in an hour. They never came home; both men disappeared that day, along with a turquoise 1993 Pontiac Grand Am with the Texas license plate number 5D7-326. A month later, the Pontiac was found abandoned and burned in the Gila River area.

In December 1999, five and a half years later, Walking Badger's remains were discovered and identified through dental records. Rivers remains missing, however. His disappearance, and Walking Badger's death, remain unsolved.