{"id":40104,"date":"2026-05-09T17:37:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T22:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/kamishas-law-and-a-push-to-hold-killers-accountable\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T17:37:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T22:37:25","slug":"kamishas-law-and-a-push-to-hold-killers-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/kamishas-law-and-a-push-to-hold-killers-accountable\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamisha\u2019s law and a push to hold killers accountable"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>
\"Kamisha<\/a><\/p>\n

Kamisha Nyvold. (Photo by Marnie Cook)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RAPID CITY \u2013 Kamisha was a toddler from Sisseton, South Dakota, who was violently murdered in 1992. The perpetrator, Jay Adams Jr admitted to inflicting blunt force trauma, failed to seek medical attention for her injuries, and pretended to know nothing of the cause of her death as he continued to live with Kamisha\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

For more than three decades, Christine Nyvold has carried the weight of the violent crime that stole her young daughter\u2019s life and exposed the failures of the very institutions that were supposed to protect her. Today, she is channeling that grief into a federal effort known as \u201cKamisha\u2019s Law\u201d \u2014 a push to remove statutes of limitations on certain homicide and manslaughter crimes and to close loopholes that still reward convicted offenders with \u201cgood time\u201d credits<\/p>\n

Nyvold, who spoke at the annual South Dakota Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Conference in Rapid City at the Ramkota on May 1, described the proposed law as one of the few measures that \u201cactually has teeth\u201d in a criminal justice landscape where families are often left waiting for accountability that never comes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really pushing to get awareness out there and get people to, especially tribes, to sign on and to talk about it and to understand how important it is,\u201d she said. \u201cThe main purpose is to get rid of that [statute of limitations]. Ten years isn\u2019t enough for something that was so violent to such a small child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kamisha\u2019s Law, as Nyvold explained it, would remove the statute of limitations on second-degree murder and address certain manslaughter offenses, ensuring that time alone cannot erase the possibility of prosecution. The bill has been introduced in Congress and is now before the judiciary committees. South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson has signed onto the House version, but Nyvold said national politics and competing priorities in Washington have slowed its progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for this war and what\u2019s going on with the White House, I think it would have been passed by now,\u201d she said. \u201cI do have faith that it\u2019s going to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet even if Kamisha\u2019s Law is enacted, Nyvold sees another problem embedded in federal sentencing policy. The man convicted in connection with her daughter\u2019s death, she said, receives 54 days a year off his sentence for so-called good behavior \u2014 a benefit rooted in federal statute and amended by the 2018 First Step Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say everybody gets good credit, except\u2026 and then they list all the exceptions, and one of them is murder,\u201d Nyvold said, describing the law. \u201cThen it says underneath there, there\u2019s another subparagraph that says except manslaughter. So you can\u2019t get it if you\u2019re convicted of murder, but you can get it if you\u2019re just convicted of manslaughter \u2014 but there\u2019s all different levels of manslaughter. I feel like that has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Nyvold is taking the battle one step at a time. \u201cI\u2019m just doing one thing at a time, because I don\u2019t want senators and representatives to say, \u2018Oh my God, now what does she want?\u2019\u201d she added. \u201cRight now I\u2019m just trying to get this other law passed and changed first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her advocacy is rooted in a long history of feeling dismissed and blamed by authorities. Nyvold recounted a 1992 encounter with federal investigators after a key witness, Joey, shared information about what he had seen as a child. When Joey\u2019s mother told Nyvold what her son had revealed, Nyvold immediately drove to Sioux Falls to relay it to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was met with a finger in my face, yelling it was my fault that the suspect was not arrested,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew they weren\u2019t there to help me, and that was the last time I voluntarily went to them to try and get something done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, after the case was finally revisited, Nyvold learned how much that early dismissal had cost her and her family. Joey, who carried his memories in silence for decades, was nearly destroyed by the burden, she said. Watching him testify in court was \u201cheartbreaking,\u201d but she believes it was his path to freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow he knew in his heart that it was the right thing to do, and he went through with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI think he knew that was his key to be truly free of all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite her anger at the system, Nyvold has built deep relationships with the investigators and prosecutors who ultimately helped reopen the case. She spoke of some of the FBI agents as family, even as she refused to minimize past failures by federal agencies in Indian Country<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an institution that hurt me so bad, but we had to move forward and find forgiveness,\u201d she said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean we forget how the system failed. I can almost guarantee you I am not the only story out there where the system failed. We need to rebuild our relationship with the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office and with the FBI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nyvold argued that Indian Country needs federal agents and prosecutors who are committed to the communities they serve. \u201cWe don\u2019t need FBI agents in South Dakota that are not committed to the communities in which they work,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t want to be here, they need to go somewhere else. We want people that want to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That vision is part of the reason she and her husband, Roger, have created a scholarship program focused on careers in law enforcement, law, social work and related fields. They want Native people in those roles, she said, because they understand the unique challenges facing their communities and are invested in change.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, the scholarship isn\u2019t completely funded, so we\u2019ve just been funding it out of our pockets,\u201d she noted. \u201cBut we\u2019re close. We\u2019re really close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roger, who spoke alongside Nyvold, described himself as an \u201cin-law victim\u201d \u2014 a stepfather who never knew Kamisha but has spent years witnessing the aftershocks of her death. A former BIA law enforcement officer and DHS employee, he said even his professional experience did not prepare him for the toll of watching Nyvold relive the case through renewed investigations and public testimony<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m feeling the way I feel, I can\u2019t imagine what it\u2019s like to lose a child,\u201d he said, at times fighting back tears. He urged more men to step up in the movement for missing and murdered people, saying too much of the work has been left to women holding families and communities together.<\/p>\n

Nyvold, meanwhile, continues to press for action. She has combed through public records, emailed tribal officials across the country, and urged relatives and friends in other states to contact members of the judiciary committees considering Kamisha\u2019s Law. She encourages others to do the same, pointing people to online congressional trackers and urging them to call or write their own representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t always have faith that anything was going to change for me,\u201d she admitted. For years, she assumed the man responsible for her daughter\u2019s death might only confess \u201con his deathbed.\u201d But the unexpected call from the FBI \u2014 and the eventual indictment \u2014 shifted that sense of finality.<\/p>\n

Now, with a federal bill bearing her daughter\u2019s name, a scholarship taking shape, and a growing chorus of families demanding reform, Nyvold sees her struggle as part of something larger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not the only story,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you ever get the chance to work on Kamisha\u2019s Law, or you know somebody in another state, ask them to support it. We need to correct this.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)<\/span><\/p>\n

The post Kamisha\u2019s law and a push to hold killers accountable<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/div>

Kamisha Nyvold. (Photo by Marnie Cook) RAPID CITY \u2013 Kamisha was a toddler from Sisseton, South Dakota, who was violently murdered in 1992. The perpetrator, Jay Adams Jr admitted to inflicting blunt force trauma, failed to seek medical attention for her injuries, and pretended to know nothing of the cause <\/p>\n

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Shared by Native Sun News Today<\/a> May 9, 2026<\/p>\n

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