The next official to examine her was Dr. W.O. Brown, a pathologist under contract to the BIA. After a very cursory examination, he concluded the case was "awfully routine;" IBID., p. 15, so much so, in fact, that he only had x-rays taken of her dental plate, not her entire body. He reported no signs of physical injury, except for a small cut on he head. His conclusion was that she'd died of exposure and that she'd been dead about two weeks, and that "like many other reservation residents over the years, she'd gotten drunk, fallen asleep and frozen to death." IBID., p. 15 However, subsequent laboratory tests revealed no drugs or alcohol in her blood. Strangely, before completing his brief and superficial examination, Dr. Brown cut off Anna Mae's hands at the wrists, put them in a preserving jar, and gave them to the FBI agents who observed his so-called examination. The official records show Anna Mae died of exposure.
Very feeble attempts were made to establish Anna Mae's identity and find her friends and relatives. An article in the "Rapid City Journal" stated only that "the body of an unidentified woman had been found near Wanblee." IBID., p. 15 There was no description of the body and no mention of significant things, such as the large turquoise bracelet on her right arm, her very long fingernails and distinctive red ski-jacket, that could have provided some clues to people about her identity. Nor was there any notice or description of her body posted in any prominent place on or near the reservation. Word of the discovery of the unidentified body did trickle down to the reservation, and the normal gossip and interest in finding out who had died was heightened by remarks people began hearing from hospital staff about the strange and very superficial manner in which the autopsy was being conducted. Several people from the reservation did attempt to see and identify the body, but Dr. Shanker tried to keep people out of the morgue the whole 5 or 6 days it was there.
One of the only "non-official" people tosee her body was Elaine Quiver, a Pine Ridge teacher, who wanted to see if the body was that of her missing cousin. She saw Anna Mae's body on February 29th. Shortly after that - and curiously, there is no record of the actual date - her body was sent to a mortuary in Rushville, Nebraska, 25 miles north of Pine Ridge. The Mortician, Tom Chamberlain, said the body was so decomposed at that point that embalming was out of the question. So he put her body in his garage - the only cool storage facility available - and sprinkled it with a strong smelling disinfectant powder. To his amazement, despite the fact that there was no official death certificate or permit for burial, he quickly received orders from the BIA to proceed with burial. Claiming to be concerned about further decomposition of the body, the BIA arranged for the funds for a pauper's burial through the reservation welfare office. Mr. Chamberlain later commented that he'd never ever encountered any such sudden insistence on prompt burial. He said he simply couldn't understand the hurry, for it was his opinion, based on 50 years of experience, that he'd seen many bodies much more decomposed that Anna Mae's - and there was no reason the body couldn't have been kept in the garage as long as the weather stayed cold.
Father Joseph Sheehan, a priest from the Holy Rosary Mission near Pine Ridge Village, performed the very short burial service. He was the only member of the clergy willing to do so in the absence of any of the proper documents. Again, no records were kept of the service, and Father Sheehan believes it was conducted on Ash Wednesday, March 3rd, 1976, but others, including his altar boys, say it was Tuesday, March 2nd.
In just over a week from the discovery of her body, in spite of the blatant (even if ignored) evidence that she'd been the victim of violence, - and absent any thorough post mortem, and with no real attempts to determine her identity, Anna Mae was buried in an unmarked grave.
Then, after the fact, on March 6th, when it was too late for AIM activists and others who knew Anna Mae to intercede and stop the extremely hasty and bizarre burial, radio and TV broadcasts announced that on March 3rd, the FBI analysis of the fingerprints (from her cut-off hands) revealed that "the dead-on-arrival from Wanblee was Anna Mae Pictou Aquash." IBID., p. 17.
Interestingly, Candy Hamilton from the Pine Ridge WKLDOC office, had received information on March 3rd that the dead person was probably Anna Mae. But the information was sketchy and confusing, and when she attempted to confirm whether or not it was indeed Anna Mae, the description of the dead person given to her by Ken Sayres, the BIA Police Chief, was not that of Anna Mae. The height was wrong for one thing. So, falsely reassured that it was not Anna Mae, Candy let it drop - until the official announcement on March 6th revealed the awful truth.
After this shattering confirmation, Candy was contacted by Mary Lafford, Anna Mae's sister in Nova Scotia. Mary feared, based on many things Anna Mae had told her, that no one in South Dakota would pursue an investigation and seek justice. She demanded that the body be exhumed and shipped to Canada immediately. Believing that, of course, AIM members and people on the reservation would see the implications of: the bizarre circumstances surrounding her death and her body's discovery; the peculiar and practically non-existent post-mortem and investigation; and the obvious withholding of information and distortion of what was released, - and would rally in a concerted outcry for a thorough investigation and search for the truth-as well as for a proper burial based in Native spirituality, Candy reassured Anna Mae's sister that the matter would certainly be properly pursued.
Suspicions about what had happened to Anna Mae did mount among some of Anna Mae's friends and they began an attempt to seek some answers. They visited the office of BIA Police Chief Sayres, but he was away. His assistant met wih the group, but he claimed he had no information, and after each question from Anna Mae's friends, he went across the hall and conferred with FBI agents and came back with a reply. Finally he became exasperated by this process, and had the group talk to the FBI directly. Surprise, surprise, the agents refused to answer any questions!
With all of the amassing suspicious circumstances, Candy Hamilton convinced the WKLDOC support group in St. Paul to take action. On March 8th, WKLDOC Attorney Bruce Ellison filed for an order to have Anna Mae's body exhumed for a 2nd autopsy. When he went to file his motion at the court, he was shocked to learn that the FBI itself had filed an affidavit for exhumation and a new autopsy. The reasons the FBI gave for their motion were: (1) no x-rays had been performed during the first autopsy; (2) she might have been the victim of a hit-and-run accident; and - most significantly - (3) she might have been killed because AIM suspected her of being an informant. IBID., p. 19 (Emphasis added.) So WKLDOC Attorney Ellison didn't file his motion after all - and the FBI agreed to postpone their exhumation until a pathologist representing Anna Mae's family could be there to observe the 2nd autopsy.
The 2nd autopsy was conducted on March 11th. A group of Anna Mae's friends, Attorney Ellison, and Dr. Peterson, the Pathologist representing Anna Mae's family, were present to observe the procedure and were kept waiting a long time for the FBI Pathologist. Finally, after repeated inquiries, they were told that the FBI didn't intend to have a pathologist there; that they only intended to take X-Rays; that if an autopsy was to be conducted, Dr. Peterson would have to do it!
Since he had been told that he was only to observe the procedure, Dr. Peterson had not brought his instruments. The hospital could not (or would not) provide instruments for him, so he had to resort to buying a kitchen knife at a local supermarket. It's remarkable - and good - that the FBI allowed Dr. Peterson to perform the autopsy! - His examination confirmed all the suspicions of Anna Mae's friends and family. He very quickly found a .32 caliber bullet in her head and powder burns around the wound at the base of her skull. Anna Mae had certainly not died of exposure (at least not the kind usually implied by that term); she died from a bullet shot at close range into the back of her head.
While a few of Anna Mae's friends were shocked by these revelations, most were not surprised in the least. They had come to expect this kind of falsification of information and cover-up of the facts. So Dr. Brown's failure to find any evidence of the bullet didn't seem at all out of the ordinary.
Perhaps the most significant part of the botched "investigation" of Anna Mae's death and the events surrounding it - including the failure to identify her - even surpressing information that could have led to her identity - is the fact that some of the law enforcement officers refused to admit they were on the scene. BIA Police Chief Sayres denies that he was there, and his reports state that only BIA Officers Merrick, Herman and Little Bird, and FBI Agent Donald Dealing were present. His failure to list Agent David Price among those present is a very significant and telling omission. Other "official reports" state that David Price was not only present, but that he was probably among the first to arrive due to his close proximity to the scene of the discovery of her body. If this is the case, Agent Price could certainly have immediately identified Anna Mae - as he had been involved in her arrest in the September 5th raid, and had told her at the time he'd been looking for her. Yet, even FBI Director Clarence Kelley attempted to hide the fact of Price's presence at the scene. Director Kelley's report attempting to explain the FBI behavior in the investigation stated : "Within 20 minutes of the receipt of the report [of the discovery of the body] officers of the BIA, accompanied by a special agent of the FBI who had never had any personal contact with Ms. Aquash and who had never seen a photograph of her arrived on the scene." IBID., p. 23 Despite continuing reports from the BIA stating that Agent Price was one of the officers on the scene, and despite eyewitnesses stating Price was at the morgue the day of the first autopsy, the FBI refused to acknowledge his presence at either location.
Clearly there is massive evidence suggesting FBI conspiracy to cove up and prevent a real investigation of Anna Mae's death, including: failure to identify her body; botched, cursory (at best) post mortems; severing her hands and sending them to Washington, instead of taking and analyzing fingerprints on the spot; very hasty and most irregular burial of the body, despite the fact the FBI admits they knew on the day of the burial whose body it was. And no real investigation has happened to this day.
The reasons for this are many - first and foremost, of course, being the inordinate amount of power wielded by the FBI - which seems to intimidate even seemingly otherwise strong and principled politicians and administration officials - most of whom are only too willing to acquiesce at some point to he FBI's flimsy excuses and explanations. Certainly no real investigation and pursuit of justice will happen without a massive organized outcry from citizens demanding answers and refusing to go way until the answers are forthcoming. We have that amply demonstrated over and over again - recently in the bombing of Judi Bari, and in the events in Round Valley (Mendocino County) leading to the deaths of Leonard (Acorn) Peters and Gene Britain, and Deputy Bob Davis - and the subsequent arrest of Bear Lincoln - as well as the blatant civil rights abuses in both Judi Bari's case and the Round Valley situation - and of course in the cases of Leonard Peltier, Geronimo Pratt, etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum.
It is obvious that the FBI played (and probably still plays) a significant role in preventing a massive, organized, sustained effort to demand justice for Anna Mae's death, having acted to create and exacerbate suspicion about her being an informer among her friends and colleagues. They continued this in their motion for the second autopsy by saying she might have been killed because she was suspected by AIM of being an informer. Even their reports to the Canadian Government clearly indicate that they thought the answers to her murder lay within AIM. They claimed, for instance, that they couldn't come up with leads because AIM members refused to cooperate, implying that AIM members had something to hide, or they they believed someone within AIM might have been responsible for her death. (Subsequently, the FBI issued a press release stating that AIM said they didn't suspect her of being a spy and that no one within AIM would've harmed Anna Mae. This despite the fact AIM had never ever said publicly they did suspect she was a spy, or suspect that someone within AIM was somehow involved in her death. So the FBI - sort of announced that AIM members said they'd stopped beating their wife a year ago.
However, if the FBI really ever thought AIM was in any way responsible for Anna Mae's death, it seems obvious it would've done everything it could to do an investigation and find such evidence - for this clearly would have given them great ammunition with which to discredit and disempower AIM.
In addition, people in AIM and Anna Mae's friends on the reservation were and are more than a little timid about making such an outcry for fear of becoming targets of FBI harrassment and abuses themselves. There is good reason for fearing this type of retribution, based on the FBI's long history of targeting people they view as threats to the status quo - or "national security threats".
But we must not let such fears stop us from pursuing the truth and justice - relentlessly - for Anna Mae, for Leonard Peltier, for Leonard (Acorn) Peters, for Judi Bari, for Bear Lincoln, for Geronimo Pratt, for Mumia - the list goes on and on - for not one of us will ever be "safe" from such abuses and violations of our rights until the power wielded by the FBI - acting as agent and protector for the corporate elite who wish to remain in control- is effectively reigned in, and until justice is assured for all of those who have been targeted and wronged.
The answer to combatting and preventing the FBI retaliation for the pursuit of truth and justice for all people and all species, lies not in attempting to protect oneself by not "getting involved" - or by being involved, but seeking anonymity for one's involvement - but rather in organizing and joining together and forming a force that cannot be ignored, and that will not go away until true justice is assured for all. In the words of Holly Near's song, "We who believe in freedom cannot rest....."
If you're not involved in active participation in the growing movement for freedom and justice - won't you join us? Call the MEC (707) 468-1660 - and we'll provide information on how you can get involved - or let us know how we can support efforts you are already engaged in. It's going to take all of us, working in concert; but it can be done!
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited