Authorities in three states are investigating the deaths of Indian women they believed are linked.

Some of the women appear to have been working as prostitutes. One was Casey Jo Pipestem, 19, a member of the Seminole Nation from Oklahoma. She was beaten to death and raped before her body was found on January 31 in Texas.

Another unidentified Indian woman was found dead October 15, also in Texas. In total, there are seven deaths between 1999 and 2004 in Oklahoma and Texas that are similar. There is another case in Mississippi that may be linked.

Pipestem was remembered by family as someone close to her tribal traditions and Christian teachings. But after the death of her grandmother and murder of her stepfather, she fell in with a wrong crowd in her early teens, family said. She dropped out of an alternative high school and started doing drugs.

Get the Story:
Slain woman's family recalls turmoil (The Fort Worth Star-Telegram 2/15)
Investigators Talking To Other States About Prostitute Deaths (AP 2/13)
Investigation of prostitute deaths expanding (The Daily Oklahoman 2/13)
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19-year-old Seminole woman beaten to death (02/05)