Ex-Indian Militant Guilty of Murder

A federal jury Friday convicted a former American Indian Movement member of murdering a woman who had been suspected of being a government informant.

Arlo Looking Cloud, 50, faces a mandatory life sentence for the 1975 shooting death of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, a 30-year-old fellow member of the militant group. Her frozen body was found in 1976 on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Jurors deliberated about seven hours before convicting Looking Cloud of first-degree murder committed in the perpetration of a kidnapping. He had been indicted in March with another former AIM member, John Graham.

Looking Cloud’s attorney, Tim Rensch, said he would appeal.

Authorities said they only recently found enough evidence to prosecute the case. A break came when the former common-law wife of former AIM leader Dennis Banks came forward.

Graham is free on bail in Canada and plans to fight extradition.

The slaying came amid a series of bloody clashes in the mid-1970s between federal agents and the AIM, which sought treaty rights and self-determination for Indians. Aquash, a member of the Mi’kmaq Tribe of Canada, was among the Indian militants who occupied the village of Wounded Knee for 71 days in 1973.

Prosecutors said Aquash’s hands were tied and she begged for her life as she was led to the edge of a cliff in South Dakota, where she was shot in the back of the head.

Looking Cloud admitted he helped drive Aquash from Denver to Rapid City and eventually to the place where he says Graham shot her, but he insisted he did not know she was going to be killed.