Opinion

Ernestine Chasing Hawk: Anna Mae's last days in South Dakota

Monday, June 20, 2016

Family members mourn at the gravesite of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. Photo courtesy of Denise Pictou Maloney

A.I.M. leaders question Anna Mae at Wounded Knee Legal Defense Office in 1975
Candy Hamilton, journalist, sees her there for last time
By Ernestine Chasing Hawk
Native Sun News Editor
www.nsweekly.com

Behind the scenes in the 1975 murder of American Indian Movement leader, Naguset Eask, lays a saga of lost love, nawizi (jealousy), revenge, a conspiracy theory and a cover up.

Shortly after Anna Mae Pictou Aquash is abducted from a Denver home by Theda Nelson Clark, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Boy Patton, she is brought before several leaders of A.I.M. to answer to allegations she is an FBI informant.

According to testimony in the 2004 trial of Arlo Looking Cloud, on or about Thursday, Dec. 11, 1975, Candy Hamilton a journalist and member of the Oglala Legal Defense Committee was at the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Offense Committee (WKLDOC) offices on Allen Street in Rapid City, preparing for the Russell Mean’s trial in Minneapolis.

While at the WKLDOC office, Hamilton said she observed a meeting taking place between several leaders of AIM, Laurelie Means, Ted Means, Clyde Bellecourt, Madonna Gilbert, Thelma Rios and Anna Mae.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Mandel asks Hamilton, “Did you at some point in the day see Anna Mae Aquash?” Hamilton, “I did. I was upstairs probably most of the day, and once when I came down into the kitchen area she was in there getting a cup of coffee.”

Mandel asks about Anna Mae’s demeanor.

Hamilton, “Since the last time I had seen her, she had cut her hair and there were tears in her eyes, she had been crying.”

Mandel, “Did she appear distraught?”

Hamilton, “She appeared very unhappy.”

Mandel, “Did you have a conversation with her?”

Hamilton, “Yes, I greeted her, and we exchanged sort of greetings. And then I said to her that it, as strange as it might seem, that she really, that people in Oglala really missed her and that I did, and that strange as it might seem, that Oglala could be a really safe place for her to stay. And she said well, ‘I don’t think I will get to, or I don't think I will,’ something to that effect.”

She said she spoke to Anna Mae for another minute or so before Anna Mae went back into the meeting. “Well, I have to go back in there now,” Anna Mae told Hamilton.