10/29/2025
Justice and Reconciliation for all our Murdered Sisters is the only way forward in Healing and PEACE on this Earth!
Jancita Eagle Deer’s story is not a case of domestic violence—it’s a case of power & institutionalized violence.
At just fifteen years old, Jancita reported that she had been r***d at gunpoint by attorney Bill Janklow, then working for Legal Services on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. She told her school principal, was taken to the hospital in shock, and her story was documented. Yet no one prosecuted her case.
Federal and tribal jurisdictional barriers buried the truth, while the power of a white attorney outweighed the voice of a Native girl.
In 1974, Jancita, with the help of the American Indian Movement and tribal counsel, successfully petitioned the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Court to disbar Janklow from practicing law on the reservation.
It was one of the first acts of tribal sovereignty in holding a non-Native official accountable for violence against a Native woman.
Six months later, on April 4, 1975, Jancita was found dead on a rural Nebraska road, struck down under suspicious circumstances.
Her stepmother, Delphine Eagle Deer, continued her fight — speaking publicly, demanding justice, and naming what the courts would not.
The following year, Delphine was found beaten to death near Rosebud. Both women’s deaths remain unsolved.
Meanwhile, the man Jancita accused — Bill Janklow — rose to power, becoming Attorney General, Governor of South Dakota, and later a U.S. Congressman.
Today, a statue of Janklow stands in Pierre, South Dakota, memorializing his career — while no monument bears the names of Jancita or Delphine Eagle Deer.
Their memory survives only in the hearts of those who refuse to let their truth be erased.
This is what power versus vulnerability looks like in America’s story:
A white man celebrated in bronze, and two Lakota women silenced in death.
Their courage revealed a justice system that protects the powerful and punishes the powerless.
Jancita Eagle Deer (1952 – 1975) and Delphine Eagle Deer (1948 – 1976) are not forgotten.
They were daughters, mothers, advocates, and truth-tellers—and their voices still echo across the plains, calling us to remember, to protect, and to believe Native women. SHARE THEIR STORY!
