Author recounts 1972 murder case

Author Stew Magnuson recounted the 1972 murder of 51-year-old Raymond Yellow Thunder and the unrest that followed the incident during a presentation at Chadron State College on Tuesday.

Magnuson, who resides in Arlington, Va., presented findings from his 2008 book, "The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder and Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns." Magnuson lived in Gordon for four months while researching the case.

Yellow Thunder was the Oglala Lakota ranch hand who was killed in Gordon after being harassed by four young men and one woman, all white, who were drinking beer while cruising the town. Yellow Thunder, who had been stripped of his pants and pushed inside a Saturday night dance at the Gordon American Legion Hall, was found dead days later in the cab of a vehicle at a used car lot. An autopsy showed that he died of cerebral hemorrhage.

Magnuson noted that "bad news travels fast" between Gordon and Pine Ridge, and friends and family members on the reservation immediately got wind of Yellow Thunder's terrible death. In addition, rumors wrongly indicated that Yellow Thunder had been castrated, forced to dance Indian style in the Legion and that law enforcement was turning a blind eye to case.

Soon, the American Indian Movement, led by activist Russell Means, became involved and organized a march on Gordon. The march brought more than 1,000 people to the northwest Nebraska community and attracted widespread media attention.

In May 1972, three of those charged in Yellow Thunder's death were convicted of manslaughter and a fourth with false imprisonment.

While offering criticism of the American Indian Movement's militant approach since 1972, the author commended the organization for its Gordon march. He noted that the attention on the case may have helped bring justice that had not been served in a number of similar cases during the two decades prior to Yellow Thunder's death.

About 50 people attended the presentation in the Chadron State College Student Center, which was the spring's final installment of CSC's Graves Lecture Series.