A Decade of Silence: The Unsolved Murder of Dante RomanNose-Jones
Cold cases grow cold because their stories stop being told. We have taken on the task of writing about local cold cases to keep their stories alive and hopefully find justice for the victims and families. Remember, as Jean Racine, the French playwright once said, “There are no secrets that time does not reveal.”
It has been 10 years since Dante RomanNose-Jones, age 13, died from a gunshot wound to the head. His murder remains unsolved. [Photos provided by Martha Tiedman]
On May 3, 2015, 13-year-old Dante RomanNose-Jones died from a gunshot wound sustained two days earlier in Del Norte County. Ten years later, his family is still waiting for justice, haunted not only by his loss but by an alleged decade of silence from the very system that was supposed to protect him.
Dante was a bright, tender-hearted boy who loved music and fishing. He also had Asperger’s Syndrome, which made his gentle nature all the more precious to those who knew him. On May 1, 2015, he was shot in the head at close range while visiting a home in Klamath. He died two days later at an Oakland hospital, and the days that followed were marked by grief, confusion, and a growing sense of betrayal.
Authorities quickly arrested a suspect—16-year-old Nathan Feliz, who was considered part of the extended family. According to Dante’s mother, Martha Tiedman, Feliz feared Dante might tell family members about alleged criminal activity and shot him while attempting to keep him quiet. Witnesses, including a cousin, were present during the shooting but were too frightened to speak freely, Tiedman said. Still, Del Norte County moved forward with charges: Feliz was indicted as an adult for first-degree murder and witness intimidation. Then, in early 2016, the case was abruptly dismissed.
Del Norte County charges against then 16-year-old Nathan Feliz, in the murder of Dante RomanNose-Jones, later dismissed.
To Dante’s mother, the decision felt like a second blow. In a recent interview with Redheaded Blackbelt, she said, “I was so devastated that it happened like that. [My son] was 13 years old. He was a wonderful kid; he could have done a lot with his life.”
She said the investigation was riddled with problems: a contaminated crime scene, lack of professional interviews, and evidence left uncollected or unanalyzed. “They say they don’t have funding to have investigators go out, [but] they still know who killed my son. There’s still witnesses–eyewitnesses! My son was sitting on the stairs next to his cousin that he was shot in front of,” Tiedman told us, exasperated at the lack of justice. “I believe, 100%, if they actually investigated properly, it’s an open and shut case.”
Tiedman said that losing her son also meant losing faith in a justice system that failed to protect Native families like hers. “It’s been 10 years[,] no new investigation[,] no new investigators[,] nothing[.] [T]hey never call us[,] they don’t care,” Tiedman wrote in an email.
Dante’s story is not just one family’s tragedy—it reflects broader patterns of how Native American victims are treated in the justice system. Del Norte County, which includes multiple tribal communities, has a troubled history with law enforcement, and turmoil in the District Attorney’s Office. In interviews and public protests, community members have described a culture of distrust, fear of retaliation, and cases that disappear into silence.
The Yurok Tribal Police, which lacked jurisdiction in 2015 due to Public Law 280, has since expanded its authority through deputation agreements with local sheriff’s departments. In a statement to Redheaded Blackbelt, a Yurok Tribal Police representative expressed “the utmost compassion for the family of Dante [RomanNose-Jones]” and acknowledged that “no family should ever have to endure the loss of a child.” They explained that while their officers were unable to investigate violent crimes in 2015, they now have the authority and training to do so. The department said it is committed to learning from past failures and improving future responses, even if such changes come too late for Dante. The Yurok Tribe also continues to advocate for reforms to Public Law 280, a federal statute from the Termination Era that shifted jurisdiction to state authorities without increasing resources—creating enforcement gaps in rural tribal regions.
For Dante’s family, though, progress feels like it’s come too late. They’ve spent years demanding answers—organizing marches, circulating petitions, and asking federal authorities to step in. In 2016, they led a march through Crescent City. “He can’t speak from the other side of the grave,” said cousin Jessica Banuelos in a 2016 Splinter article. “So it’s up to us to fight for him.”
Despite public pressure, there’s been little change. Questions remain about whether investigators fully analyzed evidence like surveillance footage, or whether more could have been done to support frightened witnesses or question the witnesses now that they are adults. “When they realized that they screwed my son’s case up so bad, they just completely backed away,” Tiedman said. “They say they’re broke. They blame it on the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office blames [it] on them, and then they blame [it] on the tribe.”
The Del Norte County DA at the time of Dante’s death in 2015, abruptly quit in 2017. Katherine Miggs was elected as the Del Norte County DA in 2018, though Tiedman says no headway has been made after she took office. “They haven’t reached out to us in years. I went in a while back, and I walked in to ask about my son’s case, and they didn’t even know about my son’s case.” Tiedman says the lack of communication reflects the DA’s lack of dedication to the case. “Katherine Miggs will not call me back. She has no interest in my son’s case.”
Matt Mais, Yurok Tribe representative told Redheaded Blackbelt that MMIP Investigator Julia Oliveira is available to assist at the request of the investigating agency and serves as a liaison between families and law enforcement.
Phone calls seeking comment from the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Office regarding this report were not returned.
On the ten-year anniversary of Dante RomanNose-Jones’ death, no one has been held to answer for his murder.
Feliz is currently in prison for unrelated crimes. Since the dismissal of charges in the killing of Dante RomanNose-Jones in 2016, Feliz has faced numerous criminal charges, but only a fraction of those resulted in conviction. In Mendocino County alone, his record includes serious allegations over several years.
2022 Booking Photo of Nathan Feliz from an arrest in Mendocino County.
At just 18 years old, Feliz was charged on May 7, 2017, with attempted carjacking, second-degree robbery, and preventing a witness or victim from reporting a crime using force. In 2020, he was charged with possession of an assault weapon and metal-penetrating ammunition. The following year brought new allegations: on March 15, 2021, he faced charges for failing to appear on a felony, driving the wrong way on a highway, fleeing from an officer recklessly, and resisting or obstructing police.
His encounters with law enforcement continued. Feliz was charged with two counts of corporal injury to a spouse, unauthorized entry of a dwelling, and offenses committed while out on bail or pending charges for an incident on January 15, 2022. Just three months later, on April 18, 2022, he was again charged with resisting or deterring an officer and possession of a firearm, along with three additional allegations under California Penal Code §12022.1(b), which applies to crimes committed while already facing prosecution for prior offenses. Days later, on April 29, he was charged with carjacking. Most recently, on June 15, 2023, he was charged with possession of a deadly weapon.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) website states that Feliz became eligible for parole in April of this year. However, according to Ricardo Garcia of the CDCR’s Victim Services Unit, Feliz, eligible for consideration under the state’s Nonviolent Offender Parole Review process, has an Earliest Possible Release Date (EPRD) in October 2025. As of the publication of this article, Feliz’s non-violent parole status is still pending.
Citing alleged witness intimidation, Dante’s mother is hoping that with Feliz currently incarcerated, witnesses may feel more compelled to speak with law enforcement and hopes continued public pressure may spur investigators to take a deeper look at the case they were once told was an open and shut case. “All it’s going to take is one person …in a position that can kind of get the flow going… There’s a lot of new investigators. There’s a lot of new detectives that are younger blood and, possibly, ones that care,” she said.
Never Forgotten [Image provided by Martha Tiedman]
Martha Tiedman is asking anyone with information about her son’s death to come forward. Tips can be submitted to the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office by calling (707) 464-4191 or through their website. Anonymous tips can also be sent by texting ‘DNSOTip’ and your message to 847411 (tip411).
NOTE: Nathan Feliz is not currently charged in the death of Dante RomanNose-Jones. The charges filed against him in 2015 were dismissed. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
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I think it’s pretty obviously to all:
Feliz did it and the intimidation of the witnesses worked. Shame.
To lay that all on the feet of LE is just grief talking.
Yes, let’s hope the now adult witnesses come to their senses and their testimony leads to Feliz being locked away for life … Because he certainly is not someone, by the looks of his subsequent actions, needs to be in public life.
The facts are: law enforcement did a bOTCHED job from the beginning…they contaminated physical evidence they did not block off crime scene…did not take accurate blood samples…if they would have done their job properly there would have been physical evidence to send him away for life…our grief will never stop talking or screaming #JUSTICE4DANTE
First, blame the killer.
If looking to assign blame for a lack of criminal prosecution, start with eye witnesses who refuse to make official witness statements and testify in court about what they saw and what they know.
Much like the Josiah Lawson case in Arcata. 100 people at a party and not a damn one of them would submit any video or photo evidence to help the case? If you want justice, be part of the solution, not add to the problems. Cops can’t lie if there are 3 dozen videos to say yes or no on factual evidence. But I have a low opinion of Del Norte’s ability to prosecute a dog that pooped on someone’s lawn accurately let alone this case. I’m not anti-LEO, but I am most certainly against sloppy investigations or outright manifestation of evidence that destroys due process before it can even begin.
CsMis said:
“Much like the Josiah Lawson case in Arcata.”
Not remotely close — this case is not a whodunnit — there are eye witnesses who know exactly what happened — very different from the Josiah Lawson case with a confusing series of events and many conflicting stories and no one who saw the actual stabbing.
I think you’d have to mean, TBT, re: Josiah Lawson’s murder, “no one who ADMITTED TO SEEING the actual stabbing.” We don’t know and may never know if anyone saw it.
Failed processing of available evidence in both. That is the comparison. Certain things that should have happened didn’t.
This guy should never be allowed to walk free amongst the citizens of this country. The loss of this fine young man at his hands may happen again to another family if allowed out of prison. This guy is a career criminal, the fact he has not been dealt with properly is because of the screwed up liberal justice system.
im sorry, but the absolute truth is that this state panders to the criminals and getting them out of jail or prison as soon as possible.
Gotta love democrats policies. Just a slap on the wrist
My question is why did a sixteen year old kid have access to a loaded handgun, and where were his parents when all this went down. So tragic. My heart aches for Dantes family ..
You can have access to them legally in some states. I had a shotgun (legally) when I was 14, as I used to duck hunt a lot with my dad but that was not CA. I had to go through the hunter safety and a few other safe handling courses to get my first license, so it can happen. However, I very much doubt that’s the case here. Also, when I was a teenager, those guns were locked up too because well….they’re expensive for one.
Its called illegal access. 16 year olds can nbot legally possess pot, meth etc but yet they get them. Gun laws dont work when it comes to criminals getting guns.
On the suface at least, it doesn’t seem that this vicious murder was unsolved. Instead, it seems that it has gone unprosecuted, which is a failure of both law enforcement and the District Attorney. It can become the subject of a grand jury investigation, or a complaint to the state attorney general might get justice done. My heart goes out to this child and his family.
To me, it sure seems we have an abundance of unsolved things. I don’t know what an acceptable rate is to people, but it sure seems we have more than our share in this region.
Write a letter to the State Attorney General. Ask the eyewitness cousin to write a letter of the events of what happened that day Submit his letter along with yours.Ask all witnesses & eyewitnesses to write a letter of the event’s that happened that day.Get as many letters as you can from witnesses & eyewitnesses and the cousin who was sitting right next to him when it happened. It’s understandable the cousin was scared at the time to come forward. Writing it down to be submitted to State Attorney General every witness & eyewitness will help.Get the letters notarized before mailing them off. Get all names of the LE officers that were working the case at the time so on so forth. Get a copy of the police report if you can. Keep up with submitting letters to the State Attorney General office until further action is taken in consideration.
When will the violence of indigenous people on indigenous victims end? Where are the indigenous leaders on these heinous acts? Who is protecting the mentally and physically challenged indigenous tribal people from the cruelty of disturbed family members? This is horrible.
Unfortunately, “extended family” protects its own. The actual victim is forgotten in the scramble to save the perpetrator. Sympathy to the mother, but LEO can only do so much in the face of a wall of silence…
Why is this any of our business or concern? These people have been engaging in casual violence for thousands of years and are not going to stop just because we try to impose our world view on them. The only thing thats changed is the Hi-Point 9mm or stolen S & W .357 has replaced the stone axe or war club.
These people have to monitor themselves and resolve issues in their own manner and among themselves. As long as they keep it between themselves, its none of our business and we should stay the hell out of it.
These people came to this continent something like 20,000 years ago.This is one of the most diverse and resource rich continents on Earth and with a relatively mild climate. When the ancestors of these people arrived here, they were stone age people — as was everyone else at that time. Some people advanced, others did not. There is a reason for this.
Hugo, First I thought about deleting this as racist and then I thought just maybe you don’t know the reality.
Long before the Pilgrims arrived, this hemisphere was home to great civilizations with advanced knowledge systems and technologies. The Maya developed a highly accurate calendar, understood zero as a mathematical concept centuries before Europeans did, and built cities with sophisticated architecture and astronomy aligned to celestial events. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, had running water, sewage systems, and large-scale agriculture—more advanced in some ways than European cities of the same era. The Inca engineered vast road systems and terraced agriculture in the Andes without the wheel or draft animals. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250142699_Potable_water_and_sanitation_in_Tenochtitlan_Aztec_culture
What often gets overlooked is that when Europeans began exploring the Americas, they encountered societies already reeling from apocalyptic losses. Old World diseases—smallpox, measles, influenza—swept across the continent before settlers even arrived in many areas, killing an estimated 90% of Indigenous populations. Entire cultures were destabilized and depopulated without a shot fired, due to pandemics that spread faster than European explorers. So the narrative of who “advanced” and who didn’t is clouded by catastrophic biological warfare—unintentional or not—that left shattered societies in its wake. https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/impact-european-diseases-native-americans
It’s also deeply problematic to reduce thousands of distinct nations and histories to “these people” as if they’re a monolith. Indigenous communities across North America have complex systems of governance, diplomacy, and conflict resolution—many of which predate and sometimes outclass European models.
When we frame this as “not our business,” we ignore the fact that colonization made it our business—through broken treaties, land theft, forced assimilation, and generations of imposed legal systems. Pretending we can now just wash our hands of responsibility while still living on land taken by force is not neutrality; it’s selective amnesia.
You were right the first time Kym. It is a racism comment.
Yeah, it’s just fucking racist. Call it what it is.
I can’t wait for the news article that covers your return of the “land taken by force” that you own. Will you be giving back your stolen land, or do you intend to keep it? If you’re keeping it, aren’t you a hypocrite?
Are you F***ing serious? “These People”? This was a 13-year-old young man who had his whole life ahead of him. He will never get to do the things that young men or young women dream of doing. Whose business, is it? It should be everyone’s business. There are too many Indigenous People missing in this state alone. Law enforcement either doesn’t have the manpower to investigate properly, or in this particular case, botched the investigation from minute one. I hope & pray that you never find yourself in this type of situation. Maybe try showing some empathy instead of coming off sounding like a racial dick.
“These” ppl are American citizens as well. They deserve every right and benefits that you do. Every protection.
When you come into a post about a 13 yr old boy being shot in the head to tell everyone that the natives should handle it on there own… while still paying taxes…
What on this good green earth is wrong with you?
Its one thing to know who committed a crime, its another thing to prove it in court espically when the crime scene and evidence is mishandled. Once evidance is mishandled sometimes there is not fixing it li9ke the case with OJ where his bronco was filled with Nicoles blood. Problem is chain of custedy was broken so it was not admissable in court.
His tribe could shun him, but that almost certainly won’t happen. We here quite a bit about American Indian sovereignty. Why doesn’t the tribe take action?
Castration works… probably… let’s find out