 | Anna Mae Aquash: Encyclopedia II - Anna Mae Aquash - Murder
Anna Mae Aquash - Murder
On February 24, 1976, Aquash was found dead by the side of State Road 73 on the far northeast corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation, about 10 miles from Wanblee, South Dakota, close to Kadoka. Her frozen body was greatly deteriorated, showing that she had been dead for some time, and an initial autopsy by the Pine Ridge Public Health Service indicated that she had died of exposure.
Famously, her hands were cut off and sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington, D.C. for fingerprinting. The body, as yet unidentified, was buried as a Jane Doe.
When her identity was confirmed, she was exhumed by AIM supporters and a second autopsy was conducted on March 11, 1976. This autopsy revealed that she had been shot by a .32 caliber bullet in the back of the head, execution style.
Anna Mae Aquash - Who killed Anna Mae?
In 2003, Arlo Looking Cloud, a Lakota man who was a low-level AIM member at the time of the murder, and John Graham (aka John Boy), a Southern Tutchone Athabascan man from Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, were indicted for Aquash's murder. Alhough Looking Cloud was convicted of first-degree murder, Graham skipped bail and has never faced trial. In his confession, Looking Cloud stated that he acted with the assistance of Graham, Theda Clark, Thelma Rio, Vernon Bellecourt and Clyde Bellecourt. He further alledged that Aquash was raped by Graham and beaten by Rios before being executed.
John Graham continues to fight extradition to the United States and has maintained his innocence.[1] Although he admitted in a 2001 interview to abducting Aquash as a suspected informant, he retains many supporters who believe he is not Aquash's killer.[2] The question of Graham's innocence has divided AIM leadership, with some arguing that he was, in fact, the triggerman (eg. John Trudell and Russell Means) and others arguing that he is merely a scapegoat. Notably Leonard Peltier, America's most well known American Indian prisoner, has dissasociated "himself and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee from John Graham and the John Graham Defense Committee" as a result of unamed "compelling evidence."[3] Graham has refused to take a polygraph test (which are proven to give significant numbers of false positives).[4]
Aquash's daughter Denise Pictou-Maloney, has stated that she believes her mother was killed by AIM members who "thought she knew too much. She knew what was happening in California, she knew where the money was coming from to pay for the guns, she knew the plans, she knew which of the leadership were drug users, but more than any of that, she knew about the killings."[5] She has further suggested that Theda Clark, Dennis Banks, Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt, Bill and Ted Means, Madonna Gilbert, Lorelei Decora Means, Bruce Ellison, David Hill, and Thelma Rios all played a part in her mother's death.
Other related archives.32 caliber, 1945, 1970s, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 2001, 2003, American Indian, American Indian Movement, Athabascan, Bar Harbor, Canada, Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, February 24, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jane Doe, John Trudell, Kadoka, Lakota, Leonard Peltier, Maine, March 11, March 27, Mi'kmaq, New Mexico, Nova Scotia, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge Reservation, Russell Means, Shubenacadie, South Dakota, Southern Tutchone, Wanblee, Washington, D.C., Whitehorse, Yukon, Wounded Knee, autopsy, civil rights, exposure, fingerprinting, first-degree murder, martyr, polygraph test, raped, scapegoat
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Murder", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
