by Kirk Russell
‘What does that do for you?’
‘Hugh Neilley had his nephew remove and try to dispose of the skull and some clothes of Ann’s before calling nine one one.’
‘Have to think.’
That took another four days and then he gave them the videotaped statement they needed. Raveneau started off by telling Hugh he would need a lawyer, but that they were going to give him some information first.
‘I’m not going answer any questions.’
‘We don’t expect you to and may not need you to. We have Ann Coryell’s skull and a statement from Matt Baylor about what you asked him to do. He also told us about the ten grand payment you got each month from Lash. We took that to Lash and he gave us a statement. We’ll play that for you now.’
They did that, and Hugh folded his arms over his chest and said, ‘He’s lying.’
‘We get it, Hugh. We understand you didn’t want to stop that ten grand a month from coming in. You needed the money.’
‘I earned that money.’
‘You were still getting it years after the book came out. Lash got sick. He didn’t write anymore. What did you do to earn the money in 2010?’
‘We were working on new stuff.’
‘Were you? Like what? We need to know who told you about the skull and how you verified it was there.’
Two days later through his attorney Hugh relented and admitted to having been told by Brandon Lindsley about the presence of a lone skull with clothes neatly folded next to it. He was told the location of the bomb shelter and that there were two partial skeletons in there as well. He claimed he didn’t believe Lindsley, so he never checked. But Hugh would have checked. He checked and then weighed having Lash arrested versus collecting ten grand in cash a month, and maybe that’s why the consulting fee got paid up until Lash was moved into assisted living.
‘We’re going to charge you with her murder,’ Raveneau told Lash and knew as he did they would never really learn what happened on the cot in the bomb shelter to Ann before she was taken out and killed. ‘Lindsley helped you move her up on Mount Tamalpais. Was she too weak to walk or resist? Did you shoot her there or was it Lindsley who shot her and cut her head off? Was that to make it harder to identify her? You knew animals would deal with the rest. We’ll name Lindsley as your accomplice and we know he tried to frame you later. Who shot her? Who killed her?’
‘He – did.’ Lash exhaled two more words. ‘Sitting Bull.’
Raveneau couldn’t make any sense of that, at least not then and Lash wouldn’t say another word. Raveneau knew some considered Sitting Bull the last true Indian, but it was a couple more days before he figured it out and did that by reading accounts of Sitting Bull’s death. That was in the weeks before the Wounded Knee massacre when Sitting Bull was vilified as the one leading the Indian ‘Messiah Craze.’ Raveneau read excerpts from the New York Times and other newspapers that described Sitting Bull as a venal and evil man shot down in a failed arrest. He was struck by two rifle balls and there were conflicting reports on the first shot. The second shot struck him in the head, but Raveneau knew it was the first that Lindsley and Lash had focused on. That bullet struck Sitting Bull on the left side in the ribs and may have passed through his heart and with it came the end of a way of being and of a people.
He saw Lash only once more and Lash kept his eyes closed and wouldn’t acknowledge Raveneau’s presence in the room. He died five days later before charges were brought. Raveneau knew from the doctors that Lash was going and could have asked a favor of the District Attorney to get Lash charged before he died, but he didn’t. He did make sure the media knew the truth though, and Lash didn’t get the obituary the press had ready. They wrote another and that one noted that Albert Lash was charged posthumously for the murder of Ann Coryell.
She was owed that. Lash and Lindsley escaped any penalty for taking her life, but her death was answered, the truth not lost. She of all would understand that.