OMAK, Wash. — Many families watched their teens graduate this spring. 18-year-old Kit Mora should have been one of them.
Instead, they are missing and the odds are stacked against them. Crimes against gender non-conforming people are up more than 500%. As an Indigenous, non-binary teen Mora faces an even higher risk of violence.
If you have a younger sibling, this may sound familiar.
“I think Kit always wanted to be really close to me but being the older sibling, I was like, ‘No, get away from me,'" said Charlotte Groo, Mora's adopted sister. "It ended up bringing us a lot closer."
At just four years old, Mora was adopted into Groo's Yakima family.
“When [Mora] started living with us, it was kind of rocky at first because they would always talk about like, really scary abuse that they had gone through,” Groo said. “We just we were super close for a lot like a long time.”
That closeness may have helped Mora open up about their identity. Eventually, the family learned Mora was non-binary.
“They got more and more androgynous with the way that they dressed," Groo said. "And I think that a lot of it had to do with abuse that they had experienced when they were younger. They just they identified more with kind of being in the middle of the spectrum versus you know, picking masculine or feminine and it made them comfortable. It made them happy."
In 2021 Mora moved away from their adopted family to reconnect with their birth mother in Omak, several hours away from Yakima. A few months later Mora stopped responding to messages. No one heard from her again.
“We say it was November of 2021," Groo said. "Because that's (the) last social media presence. Last time any of our family spoke to Kit. You know, (Mora) isn't the most social person as a whole, like they're very anxiety-ridden. But at the same time, they always craved being around certain people like Amythist.”
“[Kit’s] probably my best friend," Amythist McCart said. "I knew then from kindergarten to up until they disappeared."
When McCart learned none of their friends had heard from Mora in several months, she started to investigate.
“Me and my grandma Julie drove up to Omak," McCart said. "And when we got there, the police told us that Lori said they had run away."
Lorie Sue Nelson is Mora's biological mother.
According to police, Nelson reported Mora as a runaway in September 2022. It was almost a year after Groo or McCart had last heard from them.
We reached out to Nelson several times for this story, but have not heard back.
“If Kit were to have run away, in any sense, they would have came back to Yakima and came back to the people that they know would support them like their grandparents or their friends,” McCart said.
“Kit wouldn't even go to the store with their friend, when they were you know, staying the night at a friend's house without telling my mom," Groo said. "Like, somebody always knew where Kit was. So it's really out of character."
While they try to remain optimistic, Mora's family knows Mora faces terrible risks as a non-binary, Native teen.
According to the FBI, crimes against transgender and gender non-conforming individuals have increased by 587% between 2013 and 2019 (Department of Justice, 2013, 2019)
A 2022 study by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association found that most non-binary or trans murder victims in 2020 were Indigenous women and Trans women of color.
“I think that being Native definitely put Kit at a higher risk for something like this,” Groo said.
“They just like wanted to get to know their mom,” said McCart, describing her last conversations with Mora. “They weren't happy like they thought they were going to be when they moved there.”
With no sightings or updates, Mora's family is now offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to their whereabouts
“They would have just graduated on Saturday," Groo said. "They would be having their very first Pride Month as an adult. They would be you know, possibly pursuing their dream of being a Paleontologist. They'd be starting their life as an adult. And that's all things that I got to do. And I can't even say that they're gonna get to do it because I don't even know where they are.”
We reached out to the Omak Police Department for an update on their investigation. We will update this story when we hear back.
If you have any information about Mora’s disappearance, please contact Detective Bowling with Omak Police at 509-557-5405 or Omak Police at 509-826-0383.