A-list message, [A-List] FW: Murder and/or Suicide?

-----Original Message-----
From: Craven, Jim
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 4:36 PM
To: 'a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'; 'lnp3@xxxxxxxxx'
Subject: Murder and/or Suicide?

About fifteen minutes ago or so, I just arrived from Vancouver, BC and as I walked into my apartment, the phone rang. It was someone from Browning informing me that my dear friend and comrade in arms, Kathleen Fleurry, had been found hanged in a closet in her house in Helena; she had been dead for about a week.

Kathleen, a proud and determined Native woman, from the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa, had been a tribal lawyer for the Blackfeet Tribe in Browning who had been driven out of her position at Browning, out of standing in the Montana Bar and out of Browning after she refused to do corruption, had exposed corruption and those who sought to make her a part of it. Kathleen would work pro bono for the poorest of the poor often taking flack from other Tribal "lawyers" who were corrupt for her work with and for the poor.

Kathleen's ex-husband is a white lawyer for the Crowley Law Firm one of the most powerful in Montana; a law firm from which the U.S. Attorneys and Judges in Montana routinely come. Kathleen had alleged that her children had been abused by her ex-husband in various ways, and having shared custody of her children, when the children allegedly expressed fear of returning to their father, Kathleen took them across the Canadian Border to Saskatchewan; she was subsequently charged with kidnapping her own children (later changed to custodial interference) and despite pleas by the children that they not be returned, and without investigating the claims of Kathleen and her children, Kathleen became a fugitive which gave the Blackfeet Tribe all the excuse they needed to fire her and marginalize/demonize her. I arranged for a place for her to stay in Vancouver, BC so that she could prepare her defense and hide from further retaliation; she stayed there for about four months until she was grabbed and returned to Montana. Seeing all of the shit that would come out about her ex-husband, a plea agreement further reduced the charges against her and she was given a suspension from law practice but not loss of license. She felt that given the power and influence of her ex-husband's law firm she had no chance at anything resembling a fair trial in Montana.

I guess it could have been suicide but I'm not buying it as although she had been depressed, she was back practicing law and her punishments had been completed. Further, she left a box of documents about the Blackfeet Tribe and certain individuals in power in it hidden and told me that if she was ever found dead, to get that box of documents and begin to work with the documents in it; this I plan to do immediately. As of yet, her death has not been ruled suicide and it should be noted that several other activists or people with "dangerous knowledge" at Browning were also found hanged, made to look like they had committed suicide, and where later litigation revealed that they were murdered and it was made to look like suicide.

The world just lost a courageous activist, a true freedom fighter, a kind and compassionate person and a proud Chippewa woman. I just lost a dear friend and comrade in arms and I will not forget it or rest until the real reasons and sources of her death are exposed along with the documents she left to be carried on.

Her death was truly "weightier than Mount Tai". Please remember her.

Jim C.

James M. Craven

Blackfoot Name: Omahkohkiaayo-i'poyi-inna

Professor/Consultant,Economics;Business Division Chair

Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.

Vancouver, WA. USA 98663

Tel: (360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5

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