By Brian Hansen, Colorado Daily Staff Writer, 11/6/99

DENVER--Leaders representing disparate factions of the American Indian
Movement this week accused each other of conspiring with the FBI in order to
perpetrate and cover up the still-unsolved murder of AIM activist Anna Mae
Pictou-Aquash.

The extraordinary allegations, leveled by AIM leaders Russell Means and
Vernon Bellecourt were the latest developments in the long-running saga of
Pictou-Aquash, who was found dead in a deserted area of the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation in South Dakota on Feb. 24, 1976.

Initially, federal law-enforcement officials claimed they couldn't make a
positive identification of Pictou-Aquash's body, so they ordered an
FBI-contracted pathologist to sever its hands so that they could be sent to
Washington, D.C. for "identification" purposes.

The pathologist, W.O. Brown, concluded after an autopsy that the individual
had died of "exposure". The body was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.

In March of 1976, the FBI declared that the body was that of Pictou-Aquash.
At the request of Pictou-Aquash's family, the body was exhumed and a second
autopsy was performed -- this time by independent pathologist Dr. Garry
Peterson.

Upon examining the body, Peterson immediately noticed a large bulge in
Pictou-Aquash's left temple, dry blood in her hair, and powder burns on her
neck.

A standard X-ray revealed the presence of a .32 caliber bullet in
Pictou-Aquash's skull. Peterson quickly concluded that Pictou-Aquash had
been shot at close range in the back of the head, execution-style.

No one has ever been arrested or charged in conjunction with the murder. But
for years, speculation has raged about who killed Pictou-Aquash, and for
what reasons.

While activists and scholars have long disagreed as to who actually pulled
the trigger that sent the bullet crashing into Pictou-Aquash's head, many
observers share one common belief. The FBI played a key role in bringing
about -- and covering up -- Pictou-Aquash's murder.

At a news conference in Denver Wednesday, prominent AIM activists Russell
Means and Ward Churchill used this framework -- with an astonishing twist --
to explain the death of Pictou-Aquash.

According to Means, well-known AIM leaders Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt --
acting as FBI operatives -- ordered the execution of Pictou-Aquash in 1975.

Robert Pictou-Branscombe, who also spoke at the press conference Wednesday,
said that on Dec. 10 of that year, three men who were acting on orders from
the Bellecourt brothers kidnapped Pictou-Aquash from the home of Denver
resident Troy Lynne Yellow Wood and drove her north. At some point during
this trip, Branscombe said, Vernon Bellecourt placed a phone call to his
brother Clyde, who passed on Vernon's order to have Anna Mae killed.

Means said Wednesday that his information came from "one of the three men
that took Anna Mae to her death."

Branscombe on Wednesday identified the tree men by name. One of the men is a
"street person" living in Denver, one man lives in Nebraska, and the other
in Canada, Branscombe said.

According to Means, the FBI -- as well as the Denver Police Department --
have purposely bungled the investigation into Pictou-Aquash's murder in
order to cover up the existence of a massive counter-intelligence operation
designed to destabilize the American Indian Movement.

"The feds know the names of the three murderes," Means said, "They know the
houses that Anna Mae was taken to; they know the house in Denver where she
was kidnapped from, and yet nothing has come about." Churchill, a CU
professor and author of several highly esteemed books on the FBI's
documented counterintelligence program against AIM, elaborated on Means'
statement.

"The reason they can't solve this case is that they can't disclose their own
operative," Churchill said. "If they disclose their own operative, it's
going to disclose the complicity of the agents...and that discredits the
FBI." According to Churchill, the FBI conducted a "bad jacketing" campaign
against Pictou-Aquash, which gave other AIM activists the false impression
that she was an infiltrator working for the feds. FBI special agent David
Price, who purported not to recognize Pictou-Aquash's body when it was
found, was a "major player" in the counterintelligence operation, Churchill
said. W.O. Brown, the pathologist who conducted the initial autopsy on FBI
contracted Pictou-Aquash's body, is also suspect, Churchill said. "Anna Mae
Aquash had been shot in the back of the head at point-blank range with a .32
or.38 caliber slug...and they say she died of 'exposure,'" Churchill said.
"You've got either the most amazingly incompetent federal personnel in the
history of the FBI and the medical profession, or you've got people who were
trying to hide something. "What they were trying to hide, I can't tell you,
but it would be the job of the FBI to find out, and after 25 years they've
never even asked the questions," Churchill added.

Up until just last month, Detective Abe Alonzo of the Denver Police
Department was reportedly asking -- and getting answers -- to those
questions. In an April 1999 interview with Indian Country News reporter Lori
Townsend, Alonzo said his investigation was focused on "three individuals
(who) took Anna Mae from Denver, up to the point where she was murdered on
the reservation."

"We're at a point where we're very close to bringing final closure to this
investigation," Alonzo said in the interview. However, Alonzo won't have the
opportunity to bring Pictou-Aquash's killers to justice, as he was taken off
the case a few weeks ago. Asked why he was removed from the investigation,
Alonzo said, "I can't comment on anything. I apologize -- it's just one of
those things. I've been put on restriction. Unfortunately, it's out of my
control."

Capt. Tim Leary of the Denver Police Department said Alonzo, who works for
the department's intelligence division, was taken off the case because he
was not a homicide detective. Leary said that the case had been "reassigned"
to the department's homicide division, and that because it was an "ongoing
investigation," he could not comment on it -- even though he acknowledged no
detective had been assigned to the case. Leary confirmed that he has had
"extensive" conversations with the FBI about the case, but he denied that
the FBI had ordered the department to back off the Alonzo-led investigation.

Leary referred further questions about the case to the FBI, which he said
had "primary jurisdiction" in the matter. Special Agent Coleen Rowley, who
works out of the FBI's Minneapolis office, took issue with the allegations
leveled against the bureau on Wednesday.

"We obviously take issue with the description of the fact that we have not
investigated this case," Rowley said. "It has been vigorously investigated
over the years, but it has not resulted in being able to obtain sufficient
evidence against any person to charge or arrest them."

Special Agent David Price refused the Colorado Daily's request for an
interview, Rowley said. Asked if Vernon Bellecourt is or was ever an FBI
operative, Rowley said, "We can't comment because it's covered by the
privacy act."

Bellecourt, in a telephone interview Wednesday, called Means' allegations
that he ordered Pictou-Aquash's murder "totally outrageous, reckless, and
libelous." "It's a good example of the mentality of a man who is suffering
the effects of being a fetal alcohol syndrome baby," Bellecourt said, "His
brain is completely fried."

Accourding to Bellecourt, it is Means who is the FBI infiltrator. "The fact
is, he's been suspect for years for having something to do the death of Ann
Mae Aquash," Bellecourt said.

"We don't know who shot Anna Mae Aquash, but what we do know, based on
Freedom of Information documents...was that the FBI was squarely behind it,
and that's why there hasn't been any arrest in this matter," Bellecourt
said.

Means and Churchill both called for a complete congressional investigation
of the case.