ECHOES OF A MURDER – Two daughters, two parents, and echoes of a murder that rocked Indigenous activism

Photo: The Canadian Press In this composite image made from two photographs, Rebecca Julian, left, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash’s eldest sister, and Aquash’s eldest daughter, Denise Maloney, hold a portrait of Aquash in Shubenacadie, N.S., on June 20, 2003; At right, Naneek Graham holds a photograph of her father John Graham, who is incarcerated in the South Dakota State Penitentiary after being extradited to the U.S. in 2007 and convicted three years later in the 1975 murder of Pictou Aquash, while posing for a portrait at her home in Vancouver, B.C., Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Carson Walker, Darryl Dyck

By Darryl Greer The Canadian Press In Halifax, Denise Pictou Maloney says the trauma and grief from the 1975 murder of her mother, Indigenous activist Anna Mae Aqaush, has never dimmed. Pictou Maloney was nine when she last saw her. In Vancouver, Naneek Graham vividly remembers American FBI agents visiting her family’s home in Yukon in the 1980s to threaten her father, John Graham, with prosecution if he didn’t co-operate with the murder investigation. Thirty-five years after the killing, Graham, a member of the American Indian Movement, was convicted of murdering Aquash by shooting her in the back of the head in South Dakota. For decades, the two families on opposite sides of Canada have been unwillingly bound by the legacy of the murder that rocked the Indigenous movement 49…

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