Justice for Anna Mae Aquash?
Fifty years ago, the indigenous activist was murdered.
Anna Mae Aquash was kidnapped, interrogated, and ultimately executed by members of the American Indian Movement because she was accused to be a FBI informant. To this day, her family demands answers about those behind her murder. The streaming service Hulu is showing a documentary series about her story.
“The next 72 hours marks the anniversary of the horrific kidnapping, interrogation, beating, rape and dehumanizing events that led to the Assassination of my mother Annie Mae Pictou. Her last request was to pray for her daughters before she was shot in the back of the head and dumped in the badlands of South Dakota. An accident ? No. A mistake? No? A controversy? Nope. Just complete unadulterated misogyny and gender based violence”.
In her Facebook post from December 9, 2025, Denise Pictou Maloney, Anna Mae Aquash’s daughter, uses harsh words to describe the events of 50 years ago that fundamentally changed her own life and that of her sister, Deborah. Denise was 11 when her mother, an activist with the American Indian Movement, was murdered on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The exact date of her murder is unknown; December 11, 1975 is the last confirmed day when she was alive. According to witnesses, she was interrogated on that day by AIM members on the reservation—at the behest of AIM leadership.
Aquash, born on March 27, 1945, was a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 1972, she joined the militant American Indian Movement in the United States. In February 1973, she and her second husband participated in the occupation of Wounded Knee, a community on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The action led to a partly deadly confrontation with U.S. Marshals and the FBI (see my report). Shortly afterward, Anna Mae Aquash came under suspicion of spying for the FBI. After being questioned in December 1975, she initially disappeared without a trace. More than two months later, on February 24, 1976, rancher Roger Amiotte discovered her corpse during an unusually warm spell. Due to advanced decomposition, she could not be identified. The official autopsy attributed her death to exposure. Both hands were severed and sent to the FBI in Washington for fingerprinting, and the body was buried anonymously. When the FBI eventually identified Aquash, her family and friends demanded a second autopsy. This revealed that she had been killed by a bullet fired execution-style into the back of her head.
AIM activists Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham were sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in Aquash’s murder. Many consider them scapegoats. High-ranking members and legal representatives of AIM were among the suspects. Aquash’s daughter, Denise, also believes that activist Leonard Peltier, who was pardoned by Joe Biden in January 2025, was complicit. He spent nearly half a century in prison for allegedly shooting two FBI agents in 1975. His supporters worldwide consider him a political prisoner and celebrate his sentence being commuted to house arrest. Not only Aquash’s two daughters, Denise and Deborah, but also other voices within the Indigenous community are demanding that Peltier speak out and, if necessary, account for his actions.
When I reported his release on my blogs in January 2025, a commenter reminded me that Peltier had changed his story several times regarding the murder of the FBI agents. From “I was working on a car somewhere else” to “I was there, but I didn’t shoot” to “I was there, I shot, but I didn’t kill the agents.” Aquash’s daughter, Denise, also wrote on Facebook: “It has been well documented that Leonard Peltier bragged about shooting the agents to several witnesses who testified during my mothers trial mere weeks before she was assassinated”. In her view, her mother’s murder was part of a “well orchestrated plan to hide what ever threat she presented to a bunch of Misogynists.” Did Aquash perhaps know who had shot the FBI agents? There are conceivable reasons for Peltier’s behavior—the boasting and the denial. None of it is evidence. However, his role remains questionable. According to witness statements, at least his lawyer, Bruce Ellison, was involved in Aquash’s interrogations at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Ellison later refused to testify, invoking the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits anyone from testifying against themselves. The prosecutor called him a co-conspirator.
“The details that I know about my mother’s last hours of life are not narratives,” Aquash’s daughter Denise writes on Facebook. “These are testimony details from eye witness accounts of those who were there.” Her mother’s life wasn’t worth a penny to the AIM activists, she says in a 2010 video. Everyone remained silent to protect the “brotherhood,” meaning AIM. The documentary “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae” on Disney+’s Hulu streaming service alludes to this. The four-part series premiered on November 26, 2024, as part of Native American Heritage Month.
In 2022, I conducted research on the Pine Ridge Reservation to mark the 50th anniversary of the Wounded Knee standoff. During this research, I spoke with former AIM members who participated in the action and knew Aquash personally. They told me that in December 1975, AIM women lured Aquash, who was living in Denver, Colorado, back to the reservation. AIM men then interrogated, tortured, and murdered her. The person who initially accused Aquash of being an FBI informant did so out of jealousy and was the true traitor. So I was told. What is true and what is not? The AIM leaders of that time, Russell Means and Dennis Banks, are dead. Leonard Peltier remains silent. The 81-year-old will probably take the truth, or whatever he knows, to his grave.
The gender-based violence against Indigenous women denounced by Denise Pictou Maloney continues to this day and now has a name: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, or MMIW—or MMIWG, for Women and Girls (see my reports). Organizations such as the Red Ribbon Skirt Society and the motorcycle activists Medicine Wheel Ride raise awareness of this issue through various actions.
During my research in 2022, I met one of the victims, Esther Wolfe. Her ex-boyfriend had held her captive and abused her for nine long days and nights (read my story). He was convicted for this. On February 21, 2024, Esther Wolfe was “executed” in the street in Rapid City, South Dakota. The motive: revenge. She was 25 years old.