Two women have been arrested and charged in a 2019 murder and assault on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

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 one victim. Additionally, Cutbank and Sumner shot and injured another victim. Neither victim was named in the court documents.

Cutbank and Sumner are charged in federal court with one count of second-degree murder, one count of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury. They 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.

By — Chris Burns