Dead Woman Burning

Three Years Later, WCSO Still Stonewalling on Murder of Anna Marie Scott

RENO, Nev.—The first thing to know is that the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) wants your help. Yes, you—the good people of Northern Nevada—are being called upon to solve a murder. But expect zero information from the authorities because, three years later, they refuse to tell you a goddamn thing.

What we know: On a frigid January morning in 2022, the scorched husk of a vehicle sat smoldering on the I-580 overpass, somewhere between the neon sins of Reno and the bureaucratic tedium of Carson City. Inside the trunk, firefighters found what remained of 23-year-old Anna Marie Scott, a Paiute mother of two. Bullet wound. Homicide.

And then? Silence.

The WCSO clamped its jaws shut like a rabid dog. Not one press conference, never a timeline or public details on Scott’s final days or how long her body roasted in the trunk before someone bothered to look. Hell, they didn’t even confirm the car was hers—not even after Scott’s tribe came forward with that fact in July 2024.

For days, family and friends cried her name into the social media void while WCSO sat on their hands. It took four days—four days—before they even admitted Scott was dead. It took a month before they confirmed what everyone already knew: It was murder.

And what has the WCSO offered since? Nothing. Just the same tired refrain, “It’s an active investigation.”

Things have gone stranger. While Scott’s name languished in police purgatory, 18-year-old Naomi Irion was abducted in a Walmart parking lot just a few miles away. A case that, mind you, received wall-to-wall press coverage, multiple press conferences, and an aggressive search. Within weeks–Churchill County Sheriff deputies found her remains and her alleged killer captured.

Meanwhile, Scott’s case barely made the news.

Why? Is it because she was Indigenous? A young mother? A woman whose life—like so many others—could be swept under the blood-soaked rug of Nevada’s missing and murdered?

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto thought so. She brought Scott’s name to Congress in 2022 as yet another example of America’s ongoing genocide against Native women.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) held a prayer circle outside WCSO’s administration building, demanding action. And how did a sheriff’s deputy respond?

“What murders?”

I shit you not.

Let’s talk about the only public lead WCSO ever acknowledged–Jacori Shaw.

Shaw was 23. Same age as Scott. A Black man from Reno who, according to police, might have known something about her case. Not a suspect, just someone who “might have information.”

We’ll never know what that information was because, just one month after Scott’s murder, Shaw died in a shooting by police.

Here’s how it went down: Sparks PD claimed Shaw raised a gun at them, so an officer shot him dead. But body cam footage never showed a weapon.

A dozen cops combed the scene. No gun.

Later, some officers admitted they never saw the weapon. The only person who did was the officer who pulled the trigger.

And just like that, the only lead in Scott’s murder vanished.

Since then, WCSO has done jack shit to bring Scott’s killers to justice. They refuse to say if her case is “cold,” though records show they haven’t updated their cold case list since 2009.

Maybe in another decade, Scott’s name will finally find the light. For now, all we have is an ever-growing reward—$5,000 for any information on who killed her.

But tell me this: how is anyone supposed to help when WCSO won’t even tell us what we’re looking for? What kind of car should we remember? What movements should we recall? What missing pieces could we fill in when they refuse to give us the shape of the puzzle?

Anna Marie Scott burned in the trunk of a car on a Nevada highway, and three years later, the only thing colder than her case is the silence surrounding it.