Notes from Indian Country
Were the string of deaths accidental or murder?By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji – Stands Up For Them) This column is one that is a reminder of the unsolved deaths of Indian and homeless men in Rapid City. We don’t know where the Rapid City Police Department is on this or if it is even being investigated. I write this as a reminder to the folks who lost loved ones and to our readers so that deaths of these men will not be forgotten. It started in May of 1998. Bodies began to show up in or near Rapid City Creek. Of the eight bodies discovered in 1998 and 1999 six were Native Americans, all were homeless men. All in all in the years 1998 to December of 2000, there were 11 unexplained deaths in Rapid City, most of them involving Indians or homeless men. There was Ben Long Wolf, age 36, George Hatton, age 56, Allen Hough, age 42, Royce Yellow Hawk, age 26, Randell Two Crow, age 48, Lauren Two Bulls, age 33, Dirk Bartling, age 44, Arthur Chamberlain, age 45, Timothy Bull Bear Sr., age 47, Lonnie Isham, age 43, and Wilbur G. Johnson, age 41. Four of the Native American victims were found face down in Rapid Creek. Native Americans have pondered this strange set of circumstances since 1998. In 2009, ten years after the string of circumstantial deaths, Laurette Pourier, a Native American educator who is now deceased, said many Native Americans believe the deaths weren’t properly investigated. In an article appearing in the Rapid City Journal in June of 2009, Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway said every lead was investigated. But because so many deaths happened in a short time and then stopped; Holloway doesn’t believe they were all accidental. Stacy Low Dog, a Lakota lady who helped organize patrols of volunteers along the creek to improve safety said she believes the deaths were caused by foul play. She said most rumors in the Indian community at the time puts the blame on young white people who harassed the homeless along the creek. She said one of her cousins told her he escaped after some white men grabbed him and held his head under water. A few years ago when I inquired about the progress in solving these unexplained deaths Captain James Johus of the Criminal Investigations Division responded with, “The Rapid City Police Department and the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office worked several investigations that were additionally reviewed by the staff at Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center and the FBI. After these thorough reviews there was nothing identified to indicate these were criminal events, therefore they are not categorized as being ‘unsolved’ deaths.” What are they then? The families of Lauren Two Bulls and Timothy Bull Bear, Sr., still mourn the deaths of their family members. And as I have heard over these many years the families of all of the men found dead in or around Rapid Creek not only still mourn those deaths, but still wonder why their deaths have not been resolved. Could all of these deaths have been accidental? Are there people possibly associated with these deaths still out there? Are they still living scot-free in Rapid City? Back in 1998 and 1999 something happened to cause the deaths of so many homeless and Native American men. Was it all a colossal set of circumstances? Most Native Americans living in and around Rapid City think not. They believe that somewhere there is a murderer or murderers walking around laughing about all of the Indians they killed. After the mysterious deaths of Indians and homeless men stopped the same thing began happening to Indian and homeless men in and around Denver. If there was indeed a murderer running lose did he relocate to Denver? We would like to see the Rapid City Police Department publish an updated report on these deaths and let the Indian community know that the loss of their loved ones is not forgotten. There were just too many deaths for it to be purely coincidental. I will continue to write about this until there are some satisfactory explanations provided to the Indian people and the families of the non-Indian homeless men killed these many years ago. Please let us know where this stands today. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation and is the founder of the Native American Journalists Association. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1991. He can be reached at najournalist1@gmail.com
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