Before She Was Killed, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash Knew Someone Was After Her

It took decades for the murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash to be solved, the circumstances of which were somehow both complicated and simple. The 30-year-old radical was a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), an "advocacy group for Native American civil rights," per The New York Times. They wanted what was stolen from them: land and rights. Aquash was inspired by what they stood for, and left her two children in order to join them.

In a letter to her sister, Aquash wrote, "These white people think this country belongs to them. The whole country changed with only a handful of raggedy-a-- pilgrims that came over here in the 1500s." She described herself as a "raggedy-a--- Indian" who wanted to take the country back.

Sadly she was killed in 1975, and it would take decades for justice to be served. One of the individuals involved was a man named Arlo Looking Cloud. Where is he now? Here's what we know.

According to 9NEWS, Cloud was released from prison in 2020 after serving 17 years. In February 2004 he was handed a life sentence by a federal jury in Rapid City, S.D., but that was reduced six years later, per CBS News.

That's when Cloud agreed to testify for state prosecutors against his co-conspirator. John Graham was then convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Like Aquash, Graham was an AIM activist who came to America from Canada. Because he was not an American Indian, two courts ruled he had to be tried in a state court as the United States government had no jurisdiction over the matter.

Cloud testified that he did nothing while Graham shot and killed Aquash, a member of the Mi'kmaq tribe of Nova Scotia. Graham's attorney argued that Cloud lied in order to get his sentence reduced, but he maintained that was the truth.

In November 2024, Hulu released a documentary titled Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae. In it, one of Aquash's daughters revisits the past in order to find more answers surrounding her mother's murder. When Aquash left Canada to join AIM, it was because she heard of a revolt happening at Pine Ridge, a reservation built on the site where the Battle of Wounded Knee took place.

Nearly 300 members of the Lakota tribe were killed there by U.S. soldiers in 1890.

Soon after she arrived in 1973, Aquash entered into a relationship with AIM co-founder Dennis Banks, who was already in a common-law marriage with Darlene (Ka-Mook) Nichols. The two would later become friends and it was Nichols who ultimately led law enforcement to Cloud and Graham. After the siege at Wounded Knee, prosecutors filed criminal charges against most of the people involved. Banks was already facing a lengthy prison sentence for unrelated charges and claimed to fear for his life.

He quickly went into hiding and by 1975, was a nomad. Nichols and Aquash would meet him when they could despite the fact that he had ended things with the latter earlier in the year. At the same time, AIM was splintering and was suffering from heavy paranoia throughout the organization. After Aquash was released quickly from an arrest, people began to wonder if she was an FBI informant.

When Aquash was released on bail in November 1975 following yet another arrest, she was convinced someone was to kill her. Unfortunately, she wasn't wrong. A month later Aquash was dead and it took Nichols' perseverance to help bring her killers down. Still, that was just the beginning.

For more on this story, stream Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae on Hulu.