Savanna Greywind's Mother Speaks Out After Pregnant Daughter's Murder
The family of slain North Dakota woman Savanna Lafontaine Greywind is reeling after her body was discovered Monday – wrapped in plastic and dumped in a river. The 22-year-old’s mother, Noberta Greywind, recalled to People magazine the gut-wrenching moment she was informed her daughter had been located.
“Instantly, I had a bad feeling,” she told People.
Savanna was eight months pregnant when she disappeared from her family’s apartment in Fargo, North Dakota, August 19. She texted her mother to let her know she was going to a neighbor’s apartment to help with a dress fitting but never returned. When her mother realized she hadn’t come home, she went straight to the apartment of Brooke Crews and William Hoehn.
“Immediately, I ran upstairs and knocked on the door and asked for Savanna,” her mother told People. “[Crews] said, ‘She came and left,’ and I said, ‘How did she leave?’ and she said ‘I don’t know.’ I knew something was wrong.”
A weeklong hunt for Savanna scoured the area for any sign of the young woman. When kayakers happened upon her body Monday in Minnesota’s Red River, it was wrapped with duct tape and plastic.
“We were terrified of what condition her body would be in,” Norberta Greywind told People. “We had fears that she wasn’t going to be in one piece.”
Authorities eventually located a newborn baby believed to be Savanna’s inside Crews and Hoehn’s apartment. A DNA test was underway to confirm whether the baby belonged to Savanna. When questioned by authorities, Crews and Hoehn gave conflicting statements: Crews said Savanna gave her the baby willingly, while Hoehn said he arrived home to find Crews cleaning up blood with the newborn nearby. Hoehns said Crews told him, “This is our baby, this is our family.” The pair admitted the baby belonged to Savanna.
“[Crews] had come down a week prior to this trying to get my daughter to come upstairs,” her mother recalled. “I feel like I have a lot of guilt for not seeing this [coming] and not protecting my daughter. I didn’t think that she was in danger, I didn’t think anything like [this] could’ve happened.”
Both Crews and Hoehn were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and giving false information. A preliminary autopsy revealed Savanna died of “homicidal violence.”
Savanna’s boyfriend and the father of her child, Ashton Matheny, said he couldn’t bear to take part in the search for Savanna. The child, whom the pair had already named Haisley Jo, was being held in protective custody pending the results of a DNA test.
“All I wanted was a life with Savanna and my baby,” Matheny told the Forum News Service. “But they took it from me. My world’s gone, man. They took my world from me.”
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