The Verdict on Marquita's Murder: Rape on the Reservation

John Henion was one of the producers on the Vanguard episode, "Rape on the Reservation."

As documentary producers, those of us who work on the Vanguard team often become close with many of the people that become part of our stories. Sure, it’s next to impossible to stay in touch with everyone but social networking has made this a lot easier.

Thanks to Facebook, one of the people with whom I have remained in touch is Martina One Star – one of the main subjects in "Rape on the Reservation." Martina had lost her 19-year-old daughter Marquita Walking Eagle just a few short miles from their home on South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian reservation in November 2009. We met Martina just two months after her daughter’s murder and she agreed to let us film her as she sought justice for Marquita.

Our original idea was to follow Martina through the federal justice system as her daughter’s murderer was prosecuted and sentenced. We figured that this would be a relatively swift process considering that the defendant in custody, 18-year-old Brian Austin Boneshirt, had already admitted to beating Marquita, binding her hands behind her back, and choking her to death.

Unfortunately the wheels of justice move much slower than our production schedules do, and we soon learned that logistics and timing would simply not allow us to cover this aspect of the story in great detail. Instead we decided to focus on other elements of Martina’s story – a mother trying to heal and make sense of some of the conditions on the reservation that ultimately led to her daughter’s death. Even still, for Martina, seeing her daughter’s murderer sentenced in a court of law remained the key to her and her family’s ultimate healing. Off camera and on, we had many conversations about what Martina ultimately wanted to see as an outcome. During this time the pain of her loss was still quite raw and you could sense that part of her wanted revenge – she’d say that she didn’t want Brian to get a death penalty but life in prison so he would spend every day of the rest of his life behind bars and be subjected to prison violence.

As filmmakers, we try not to judge the people in our stories. Taking off that lens and simply looking into Martina’s eyes as a friend and another human being, I couldn’t blame her for having these feelings about Brian fate. Why should I? I’ve never experienced or even met anyone before who had suffered loss and betrayal on this scale (since Brian had been Marquita's best friend). The crime seemed at first glance unforgivable.

We took three trips to the Rosebud Reservation, but Brian's trial had still not begun before our show aired in June of 2010. But Martina continued to pop in on Facebook just to say hi, tell me about her new job, or the classes she was taking in criminal justice. She also kept me updated on the trial.

By mid June, Brian's day in court had finally arrived. He was found guilty of second degree murder and a sentencing was scheduled for September 18. Now, nearly 11 months after the murder, Martina found herself driving to the federal court house for the last time to witness justice for her daughter’s murder, to see Brian sentenced to 48 years of imprisonment, five years of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment.

In the days just after his sentencing, I received several posts on Facebook from friends and family of Martina’s who announced the verdict, but no word from Martina. I thought she’d be the first to spread the news and her absence got me wondering about how the events affected her. Did she think 48 years was enough? Was she upset that Brian had not received a life sentence? Had she changed her mind about the death penalty? Despite my initial assumptions, I later learned that her silence was not an act of frustration in the verdict, but an act of grace and compassion from a woman and a family on the mend. This was after I decided to give Martina a call to speak with her about the sentencing and how she felt about this entire chapter of her life and moving on. Here’s a little bit of that conversation, recorded with Martina’s permission:

Nearly a year after Marquita’s murder, Martina is indeed moving on. But despite what she thought and felt several months ago – it’s not legal justice or a sense that Brian would get what he deserved that’s providing the momentum for that healing. It’s her own perspective on life, death, and moving forward that seems to be what makes the difference.