Killer of Annie Mae Aquash, American Indian Activist, Gets Life Sentence

RAPID CITY, South Dakota (AP) A man convicted in the 1975 slaying of American Indian Movement activist Annie Mae Aquash will serve life in prison, a judge decided Monday, closing a major chapter in an investigation that's taken more than three decades.

A South Dakota jury convicted John Graham of felony murder for participating in a kidnapping that ended in Aquash's death. State law from the time of the incident requires sentence of life without parole, state Attorney General Marty Jackley said.

The jury found Graham not guilty of premeditated murder.

Aquash was active in AIM, a group started in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government's treatment of American Indians and demand the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes. The movement grabbed national headlines with its 1972 takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington and, during the following year, its 71-day occupation of the reservation town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Graham is the second person to be convicted in Aquash's death, which remains synonymous with the often violent clashes of the 1970s between AIM activists and federal agents.

What still isn't known, and may never be, are the circumstances behind Aquash's killing. Authorities believe AIM leaders ordered her death because they thought she was helping the government, which officials have denied.

Prosecutors continue to discuss the case, but Jackley has refused to comment on whether others will be charged.

"I think it's fair to state that the Annie Mae Aquash investigation remains an open investigation," he said Friday.

No AIM leader has ever been charged in her slaying, and several people involved with AIM have denied their own involvement.

During five days of testimony last month, witnesses said they saw Graham and two other AIM activists take Aquash from a house in Denver and eventually to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Arlo Looking Cloud, who was convicted in Aquash's slaying in 2004, testified that he watched Graham shoot Aquash with a .32-caliber pistol.

For now, Graham, a 55-year-old Southern Tutchone Indian from Canada, joins Looking Cloud as the two people convicted in Aquash's death. Clark has never been charged and refused to testify at Graham's trial, invoking her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.

Nov. 30, 2010 -John Graham to Stand Trial for 1975 Murder of American Indian Movement Activist Annie Mae Aquash