Couple sentenced to prison in brutal killing of woman on Navajo Nation

In early 2020, Stacey Yellowhorse and her then-boyfriend Timothy Chischilly nailed a woman to the floor of a home by her hands. The pair then bludgeoned her with a sledgehammer, burned her body and scattered pieces of it across various locations in the Navajo Nation.

Afterward, while Pamela Damon was still considered missing, the pair visited her family and Yellowhorse assured Damon’s 7-year-old daughter she would “bring her back safe.”

On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced Yellowhorse, 53, and Chischilly, 51, to each serve 19 years in prison and pay $5,335 restitution for the death of Damon, 36. After their incarceration, both will be on supervised release for five years.

Chischilly and Yellowhorse took deals offered by prosecutors and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder earlier this year, according to court records. In the plea agreements, both admit to killing Damon “with malice aforethought.”

It is unclear in court records what the couple’s motive was in Damon’s killing.

The last time Damon’s family heard from her was on Jan. 23, 2020, when she told them she was staying overnight with Yellowhorse in Mexican Springs, near Tohatchi, according to a sentencing memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in New Mexico. Days later, Yellowhorse, who was with Chischilly, told Damon’s family they dropped her off and told her daughter, “We’ll find your mom.”

Chischilly told his relatives he had nailed Damon to the floor and Yellowhorse hit her with a sledgehammer, the memorandum states. Navajo police questioned the couple and both repeatedly denied the accusations until Yellowhorse told officers Chischilly killed Damon “by himself.”

The pair were then arrested by federal agents, who were told by Chischilly’s family that he had changed since dating Yellowhorse, starting to drink and use methamphetamine.

Agents searched the property the couple lived on and found two holes in the floor surrounded by blood and Damon’s bones scattered around — in a fire pit and at a garbage dump area, according to the memorandum. On Feb. 2, 2020, agents found Damon’s skull, which “had a hole consistent with that of a nail being driven into it.”

In Yellowhorse’s plea agreement, she placed the actions of killing Damon — identified as “Jane Doe” — at the couple’s home ambiguously between the two “restraining and bludgeoning her to death.” In his plea agreement, Chischilly was more specific: they nailed Damon to the floor, drove a nail into her head and bludgeoned her.

“I personally held Jane Doe to the floor. (Yellowhorse) hit Jane Doe in the head with a sledgehammer,” according to Chischilly’s plea agreement. Chischilly said in his plea agreement, “Afterwards, (Yellowhorse) and I burned Jane Doe’s body and spread the remains at different locations.”