Two Women Charged in 2019 Murder and Assault on the Red Lake Indian Reservation

MINNEAPOLIS – Two women have been arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Kovats.

According to court documents, on August 12, 2019, Alexia Gah Gi Gay Mary Cutbank, 20, and Mia Faye Sumner, 20, while aided and abetted by others, murdered victim “D.A.J.” Additionally, Cutbank and Sumner shot and injured victim “T.B.S.”

Cutbank and Sumner both made their initial appearances today before Magistrate Judge Katherine M. Menendez. Cutbank and Sumner were ordered detained pending a formal detention hearing scheduled for 10:00 am on December 15, 2021.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Red Lake Tribal Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the FBI Headwaters Safe Trails Task Force, the Duluth Police Department, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), and the Minnesota Department of Corrections, in collaboration with the United States Attorney’s Office Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Deidre Y. Aanstad is prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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