- her letters
- excerpts/history of her life in AIM
- scroll down for more
- INTERVIEW with John Graham, 3.04
- notes from Arlo Looking Cloud Trial, 2.04
- U.S. vs John Graham: legal documents posted by Robert Robideau
- Murder Wrapped in a Blanket a 2007 piece re: Robideau in British Columbia
- letter (Nov. 1975) by Anna Mae Pictou Aquash from Jail
- current Statement (12.10.07) from John Graham's family
- about Naneek Graham, John Graham's daughter
- past Statement from Annie Mae's daughter
- letter (summer 1975) from Annie Mae to Dennis Banks
- about John Trudell
- click here for menu of this blog
Ikons of the Past
by antoinette nora claypoole
Ashland, Or. Dec. 12. According to most sources, 32 years ago tonight--Dec. 12th 1975-- is the date Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was murdered. And now we await a trial date for John Graham. Her accused murderer. Some wonder, some know, how the landscape looks from his cell.
Only a brief public “statement” by Graham supporters. Words of nothing new. Posted on a website. While Indian Country waits for word of when the lost ikons of AIM activism will emerge. To testify against a man they barely knew.
Like deer in headlights of an old Ford it seems tonight has an eerie frozen in time theme. Where are the unsilenced people? How did Annie Mae fight for her life?
There are many who have investigated this brutal piece of Indian history for over a decade. And most put missionary style faith into key investigators, Who claim the Dec. death doctrine. Like papal mandates during the witch hunting Inquisition. There are ‘facts’ which are considered sacred to this case. Information which emerged from the hard conquests of secrecy which Annie Mae’s death eluded for nearly 20 years. A time before anyone took “interest” in the case.
Paul Demain (ed. News from Indian Country) and Robert Branscombe (second cousin to Annie Mae) were the first to emerge. They spent years of their lives trying to follow the trail of corruption which lead to Annie Mae’s murder.
Yet. The ghost of her second husband, Nogeeshik Aquash (1944-1990?) cannot be forgotten. His research notes may have burned down with the house, but the pursuit of a timeline for Annie Mae’s death persisted. Only to continue to defy the sensibilities of the rare few who can’t make two and two be five. For time is still a mystery to those of us certain life is a circle of worlds unnamed but to the best of dreamers.
What do I mean?
What in the world Carmen San Diego am I talking about, you ask?
I mean some people believe Annie Mae did not die in December 1975. Despite the efforts of writers and others.
Nonetheless, John Graham awaits trail based on ....the One timeline which dominates. Like a patriarch in a village resisting the inevitability of electricity. A light in the late 90’s was shined into the corner of Annie Mae’s death. Emerging and prevailing research placed today, Dec. 12th,, as the day 32 years ago that John Graham shot a mother. And activist. The rare kind of woman who believed in what she knew others had forgotten. “Being Indian” was something to claim. Or die trying to defy.
But let’s go back.
Consider Annie Mae’s estranged husband, Nogeeshik. Not the father of her daughters but a man she married at the Siege of Wounded Knee (1973). He spent the rest of his own life—after her murder-- trying to find the killers. Family rumour had it (interview of Mickey Aquash, 1995) that Nogeeshik had discovered who killed his wife the night before HE died in a “mysterious” house fire. In the early 90’s.
Nogeeshik had already been paralyzed in an odd car accident while he searched for clues to Annie Mae’s execution. Silkwood style. The night he died he apparently phoned a family member from his wheelchair and announced the frayed truth of his search. Because Nogeeshik couldn’t walk, he didn’t survive the house fire. And died with this info he had found. He said he knew who killed Annie Mae. And died with that “truth” bleeding inside of him. Most likely died because names and photos were folded too neatly into his vest pocket.
Like family albums there are other stories I found inside the Aquash camp, way back when. Stories which haunt me. Stories that cut and paste me into pages and pages of writing about Annie Mae and her accused murderer John Graham.
Is there a reprieve for any of us?
Perhaps not.
Long before I heard Graham’s name, someone sent me an internet link. It was the mid 90’s and computers were not what they have become. Like naive teens picking berries in Maine for a living---as Annie Mae did when she met the father of her “girls”---those of us looking for information on the “net” were locked into a late autumn’s harvest. After the freeze. That is, there was little if anything online about Annie Mae in those days.
Nonetheless, a guy named Jordan Dill had replied to my call for interviews of people who knew Annie Mae. He sent me a link to pages by/of a woman named Paula Giese. The pages told of Annie Mae and their Christmas visit. Paula Giese was remembering. In 1975. Two weeks after Dec. 12. “Here” I wrote, “ finally someone with a good story to tell about Annie Mae before she died. A great beginning of a timeline to her last days”. It was only later that the Dec 12th death date was named.
3 or 4 years later Paul Demain approached Dill and a new timeline emerged. One which said Annie Mae was killed before Christmas and her body had been in the ravine in Wanblee for over 2 months before being found.
The fact is, Paula Giese died sometime before this new timeline (far as I can tell) and there seems no one around to dispute the Dec. 12th date which places John Graham--and his admitted ride to Pine Ridge with Annie Mae (interview 2004)-- into the context of death.
There is no footnote to offer you here.
Only pieces of an inconceivable brutal act of betrayal. By someone. Perhaps John Graham. Perhaps another unnamed clan. Of would be dream lovers of her life.
Anna Mae’s daughter Denise has been a spokesperson for her mother’s legacy since her distant cousin, Bob Branscombe visited Denise and family. Bob’s mother was first cousin to Annie Mae. Had heard stories of the death but it was Bob who set things in motion for the family. In Nova Scotia in the mid 1990’s.
Denise Maloney has been clear on many occasions that she believes Looking Cloud’s confession to murder via Graham’s “gun” --and has many reasons to believe all the stories which have been told her. About her mother’s death.
Today, on the day Annie Mae is said to have died, I tried to honor Denise and asked her for a “statement” about Graham in S. Dakota. But she chose not to reply.
Instead a new piece of info came my way.
According to a source close to this case—a person who asked to remain anonymous--Arlo Looking Cloud HAS been in communication with Denise Maloney. Rumour has it that Looking Cloud may be ready to testify against John Graham. At the upcoming trial. The prosecution obviously could use a "witness" so this idea is nothing new. Is Looking Cloud back to stating that Graham did indeed fire a gun at Annie Mae 32 years ago today? TIme will reveal what humans deny. His story runs both ways.
Looking Cloud would be an obvious witness for the prosecution, but his statements have been corrupted by a video confession during which he told the investigators he was drinking. He never took the stand. At his own trial. One thing we know.
The ups and downs of Looking Cloud are like the badlands weather. Take shelter. More storms ahead.
There is no safety zone. We really have no where left to go.
No Nogeeshik. No Paula Giese. No reliable coroner’s report. We have Looking Cloud, a self-proclaimed “drunken” Indian telling a story. And we have most of old AIM saying nothing. That Looking Cloud hasn’t said already.
Most of old AIM never mentions tribunals against Annie Mae, as she was suspected of being a Federal Agent. Rather. We have old AIM claiming everything from denial that Annie Mae was important in the movement to open air statements that her lawyer used her own cold jail cell letter. Against her. Her jail letter about informants. Was used as proof, some say. Proof that Annie Mae was a Fed. At an AIM tribunal that many people attended.
Indeed. The same people who point fingers at John Graham sat in an old house 32 years ago and listened to Annie Mae sentenced to death by gun and they did nothing. To stop it. It took over 20 years for some people to finally say out loud "she was one of us". She was not an agent. There are still others who remain silent. And the rare few unafraid to speak.
Enter Robert Robideau of NW AIM. Who was at the time of Annie Mae's murder being held for the killing of FBI at Oglala. Robideau's unique place in history makes it crucial that we hear his concerns (click here for details). For he is neither threatened with an indictment by the U.S. nor is he invested in “protecting” anyone. The idea that he lives with a concern that he was too “naive” to know Annie Mae needed protection back then. Is haunting enough for Robideau. But he was in jail. He could do nothing.
An old rumour in Indian Country says that some folks had a sudden pang of guilt and raced out to stop the execution. But they were too late. To save her from the sins of “mob” behaviour.
Are there bystanders, a peanut gallery of activists who are so easily acquitted in all this? Does a search for those who saw Annie Mae at Christmas change any of this? Does John Graham have someone he is protecting?
These are the questions people might want to start asking.
Answers which I can imagine merit a “virtuous” voice. If only for a a new generation who has inherited the “sins of the fathers”.
Whether Annie Mae was killed on Dec. 12, 1975 or Mid February 1976 makes all the difference to John Graham’s daughter, Naneek. Who believes her Dad when he says he did, yes, ride with Annie Mae. And drove her to Pine Ridge. Around Dec. 12th. Naneek believes her dad when he says he dropped Annie Mae off at a safe house. There. And that was the last time he saw her.
Is it so unconceivable that someone else killed Annie Mae
If so, why?
Is it so impossible that the AIM leadership, which is often mentioned by Robert Robideau had plans to kill Annie Mae?
Could those plans—perhaps—have excluded John Graham?
These are the questions some may be asking.
These are the questions that say “tell me answers.”
Before any trial can be deemed fair.
We deserve more.
Before any trial can write the history of the life and death of Indians.
We need a jury of more than one wanabee Indian.
We need a place where racism is not the credo of courtroom drama.
And.
We need to hear from Old AIM.
Thanks to Robert Robideau for taking up one of the tasks.
And to Nogeeshik Aquash for trying.
The verdict is far from being in on how South Dakota plans to break it’s own addiction to lynching Indians.
Ashland, Or. Dec. 12. According to most sources, 32 years ago tonight--Dec. 12th 1975-- is the date Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was murdered. And now we await a trial date for John Graham. Her accused murderer. Some wonder, some know, how the landscape looks from his cell.
Only a brief public “statement” by Graham supporters. Words of nothing new. Posted on a website. While Indian Country waits for word of when the lost ikons of AIM activism will emerge. To testify against a man they barely knew.
Like deer in headlights of an old Ford it seems tonight has an eerie frozen in time theme. Where are the unsilenced people? How did Annie Mae fight for her life?
There are many who have investigated this brutal piece of Indian history for over a decade. And most put missionary style faith into key investigators, Who claim the Dec. death doctrine. Like papal mandates during the witch hunting Inquisition. There are ‘facts’ which are considered sacred to this case. Information which emerged from the hard conquests of secrecy which Annie Mae’s death eluded for nearly 20 years. A time before anyone took “interest” in the case.
Paul Demain (ed. News from Indian Country) and Robert Branscombe (second cousin to Annie Mae) were the first to emerge. They spent years of their lives trying to follow the trail of corruption which lead to Annie Mae’s murder.
Yet. The ghost of her second husband, Nogeeshik Aquash (1944-1990?) cannot be forgotten. His research notes may have burned down with the house, but the pursuit of a timeline for Annie Mae’s death persisted. Only to continue to defy the sensibilities of the rare few who can’t make two and two be five. For time is still a mystery to those of us certain life is a circle of worlds unnamed but to the best of dreamers.
What do I mean?
What in the world Carmen San Diego am I talking about, you ask?
I mean some people believe Annie Mae did not die in December 1975. Despite the efforts of writers and others.
Nonetheless, John Graham awaits trail based on ....the One timeline which dominates. Like a patriarch in a village resisting the inevitability of electricity. A light in the late 90’s was shined into the corner of Annie Mae’s death. Emerging and prevailing research placed today, Dec. 12th,, as the day 32 years ago that John Graham shot a mother. And activist. The rare kind of woman who believed in what she knew others had forgotten. “Being Indian” was something to claim. Or die trying to defy.
But let’s go back.
Consider Annie Mae’s estranged husband, Nogeeshik. Not the father of her daughters but a man she married at the Siege of Wounded Knee (1973). He spent the rest of his own life—after her murder-- trying to find the killers. Family rumour had it (interview of Mickey Aquash, 1995) that Nogeeshik had discovered who killed his wife the night before HE died in a “mysterious” house fire. In the early 90’s.
Nogeeshik had already been paralyzed in an odd car accident while he searched for clues to Annie Mae’s execution. Silkwood style. The night he died he apparently phoned a family member from his wheelchair and announced the frayed truth of his search. Because Nogeeshik couldn’t walk, he didn’t survive the house fire. And died with this info he had found. He said he knew who killed Annie Mae. And died with that “truth” bleeding inside of him. Most likely died because names and photos were folded too neatly into his vest pocket.
Like family albums there are other stories I found inside the Aquash camp, way back when. Stories which haunt me. Stories that cut and paste me into pages and pages of writing about Annie Mae and her accused murderer John Graham.
Is there a reprieve for any of us?
Perhaps not.
Long before I heard Graham’s name, someone sent me an internet link. It was the mid 90’s and computers were not what they have become. Like naive teens picking berries in Maine for a living---as Annie Mae did when she met the father of her “girls”---those of us looking for information on the “net” were locked into a late autumn’s harvest. After the freeze. That is, there was little if anything online about Annie Mae in those days.
Nonetheless, a guy named Jordan Dill had replied to my call for interviews of people who knew Annie Mae. He sent me a link to pages by/of a woman named Paula Giese. The pages told of Annie Mae and their Christmas visit. Paula Giese was remembering. In 1975. Two weeks after Dec. 12. “Here” I wrote, “ finally someone with a good story to tell about Annie Mae before she died. A great beginning of a timeline to her last days”. It was only later that the Dec 12th death date was named.
3 or 4 years later Paul Demain approached Dill and a new timeline emerged. One which said Annie Mae was killed before Christmas and her body had been in the ravine in Wanblee for over 2 months before being found.
The fact is, Paula Giese died sometime before this new timeline (far as I can tell) and there seems no one around to dispute the Dec. 12th date which places John Graham--and his admitted ride to Pine Ridge with Annie Mae (interview 2004)-- into the context of death.
There is no footnote to offer you here.
Only pieces of an inconceivable brutal act of betrayal. By someone. Perhaps John Graham. Perhaps another unnamed clan. Of would be dream lovers of her life.
Anna Mae’s daughter Denise has been a spokesperson for her mother’s legacy since her distant cousin, Bob Branscombe visited Denise and family. Bob’s mother was first cousin to Annie Mae. Had heard stories of the death but it was Bob who set things in motion for the family. In Nova Scotia in the mid 1990’s.
Denise Maloney has been clear on many occasions that she believes Looking Cloud’s confession to murder via Graham’s “gun” --and has many reasons to believe all the stories which have been told her. About her mother’s death.
Today, on the day Annie Mae is said to have died, I tried to honor Denise and asked her for a “statement” about Graham in S. Dakota. But she chose not to reply.
Instead a new piece of info came my way.
According to a source close to this case—a person who asked to remain anonymous--Arlo Looking Cloud HAS been in communication with Denise Maloney. Rumour has it that Looking Cloud may be ready to testify against John Graham. At the upcoming trial. The prosecution obviously could use a "witness" so this idea is nothing new. Is Looking Cloud back to stating that Graham did indeed fire a gun at Annie Mae 32 years ago today? TIme will reveal what humans deny. His story runs both ways.
Looking Cloud would be an obvious witness for the prosecution, but his statements have been corrupted by a video confession during which he told the investigators he was drinking. He never took the stand. At his own trial. One thing we know.
The ups and downs of Looking Cloud are like the badlands weather. Take shelter. More storms ahead.
There is no safety zone. We really have no where left to go.
No Nogeeshik. No Paula Giese. No reliable coroner’s report. We have Looking Cloud, a self-proclaimed “drunken” Indian telling a story. And we have most of old AIM saying nothing. That Looking Cloud hasn’t said already.
Most of old AIM never mentions tribunals against Annie Mae, as she was suspected of being a Federal Agent. Rather. We have old AIM claiming everything from denial that Annie Mae was important in the movement to open air statements that her lawyer used her own cold jail cell letter. Against her. Her jail letter about informants. Was used as proof, some say. Proof that Annie Mae was a Fed. At an AIM tribunal that many people attended.
Indeed. The same people who point fingers at John Graham sat in an old house 32 years ago and listened to Annie Mae sentenced to death by gun and they did nothing. To stop it. It took over 20 years for some people to finally say out loud "she was one of us". She was not an agent. There are still others who remain silent. And the rare few unafraid to speak.
Enter Robert Robideau of NW AIM. Who was at the time of Annie Mae's murder being held for the killing of FBI at Oglala. Robideau's unique place in history makes it crucial that we hear his concerns (click here for details). For he is neither threatened with an indictment by the U.S. nor is he invested in “protecting” anyone. The idea that he lives with a concern that he was too “naive” to know Annie Mae needed protection back then. Is haunting enough for Robideau. But he was in jail. He could do nothing.
An old rumour in Indian Country says that some folks had a sudden pang of guilt and raced out to stop the execution. But they were too late. To save her from the sins of “mob” behaviour.
Are there bystanders, a peanut gallery of activists who are so easily acquitted in all this? Does a search for those who saw Annie Mae at Christmas change any of this? Does John Graham have someone he is protecting?
These are the questions people might want to start asking.
Answers which I can imagine merit a “virtuous” voice. If only for a a new generation who has inherited the “sins of the fathers”.
Whether Annie Mae was killed on Dec. 12, 1975 or Mid February 1976 makes all the difference to John Graham’s daughter, Naneek. Who believes her Dad when he says he did, yes, ride with Annie Mae. And drove her to Pine Ridge. Around Dec. 12th. Naneek believes her dad when he says he dropped Annie Mae off at a safe house. There. And that was the last time he saw her.
Is it so unconceivable that someone else killed Annie Mae
If so, why?
Is it so impossible that the AIM leadership, which is often mentioned by Robert Robideau had plans to kill Annie Mae?
Could those plans—perhaps—have excluded John Graham?
These are the questions some may be asking.
These are the questions that say “tell me answers.”
Before any trial can be deemed fair.
We deserve more.
Before any trial can write the history of the life and death of Indians.
We need a jury of more than one wanabee Indian.
We need a place where racism is not the credo of courtroom drama.
And.
We need to hear from Old AIM.
Thanks to Robert Robideau for taking up one of the tasks.
And to Nogeeshik Aquash for trying.
The verdict is far from being in on how South Dakota plans to break it’s own addiction to lynching Indians.
to be continued......
copyright 2007
a. nora claypoole
Posts
