Law | National

FBI closes case on man who went missing in Wounded Knee '73

Thursday, February 20, 2014

A civil rights activist who went missing during the 1973 occupation at Wounded Knee in South Dakota was killed, according to the FBI.

But details of the death of Ray Robinson remain sketchy. There are conflicting stories about what might have happened after he showed up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in April 1973 -- one account has him being shot for failing to report to an American Indian Movement leader in a timely manner.

There are also no clues as to the whereabouts of his body. His widow and surviving daughters visited the reservation in 2004 but they left without answers.

“I’d just like to have my dad. I’d like to have a place where I can sit down and talk to him and know he’s there,” daughter Desiree Marks told the Associated Press.

The FBI suspects Robinson was killed by AIM members but the agency has closed the case.

Get the Story:
FBI confirms activist was killed in SD in 1973 (AP 2/20)
F.B.I. Papers Yield Clues in Vanishing of Civil Rights Activist (The New York Times 2/20)
Civil rights activist who disappeared in 1973 was 'tortured and murdered by members of American Indian Movement he was trying to HELP,' newly released FBI documents claim (The Daily Mail 2/19)