On June 27, 1978, a 44-car Conrail freight train struck and killed two Crow Indian brothers near Little Falls, New York. The day before, the boys had disappeared. It was later revealed that the two boys \u2014 Bobby, 13, and Tyler, 11 \u2014 had run away from the white, Baptist family that had adopted them and their biological sisters seven years earlier, spiriting them from a troubled Montana reservation family to an idyllic Victorian castle across the country. Lost Sparrow<\/i> is filmmaker Chris Billing\u2019s investigation into the dark family secret that prompted his own adopted brothers\u2019 fatal flight.<\/p>\n
A mosaic of Super 8mm home movies, family photographs, newspaper articles, adoption records, police reports, and new on-camera interviews with key people involved in the lives of the two boys, Lost Sparrow<\/i> pieces together memories and theories from Bobby and Tyler\u2019s biological sisters and father, adoptive parents and siblings, social workers who oversaw their adoption, and the police officers who investigated their deaths.<\/p>\n
Bobby and Tyler\u2019s brief lives were tragic from their very beginnings. They were born to teenage parents on the Crow reservation in Montana, survived early years of abuse and neglect, were adopted by a wealthy East Coast family, and finally died on a railroad track in upstate New York. Thirty years later, in an act to close the circle, filmmaker Chris Billing arranges the return of his brothers\u2019 remains from Rural Park Cemetery in Manheim, New York, to the Stands Over Bull Family Cemetery in Pryor, Montana.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe as Crows don\u2019t believe in burying a Crow Indian some place off in a far away land,\u201d says Pat Stands Over Bull, the boys\u2019 uncle. The Crow belief is that their spirit never rests, and they just go around, when that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeking answers for his own closure, Billing returns to the site of the train accident. Two Little Falls Police officers who investigated the tragedy recall their all-night search for Bobby and Tyler, an early morning call about an incident at the railroad tracks, and the grisly discovery of two young men on the tracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a terrible, terrible, terrible thing,\u201d says retired officer Edward John Dillon. \u201dEven today, the thought still comes into my mind. You never forget things like that. Never.\u201d<\/p>\n
What caused the boys to run away remained a mystery for years, until Billing began to gently peel away the layers of shame, denial, and fear to begin to heal and forgive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lost Sparrow is an adoptive brother’s journey to bring his two Crow Indian brothers home and confront a painful truth that shattered his family, after their sudden and mysterious deaths decades ago.<\/p>\n
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