Perry Ray Robinson Jr., 35, of Bogue Chitto, Alabama, disappeared in late April 1973 while participating in the American Indian Movement's occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Robinson, a civil rights activist and follower of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had called his wife from a conference in Taos, New Mexico, in March 1973 to say he intended to join the occupation; he traveled to South Dakota with several other Black activists from Alabama. Witnesses inside the encampment later told investigators Robinson had been present for roughly a week before he was last seen, and described him having difficulty adapting to conditions imposed during the siege. He did not return home after the occupation ended. That fall, when a group of activists who had traveled with him arrived back at the Robinson family farm in Alabama, Robinson was not among them. His wife, Cheryl Buswell-Robinson, subsequently filed a missing person report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Robinson's clothing and personal effects at the time of his disappearance are not documented in public records.
The FBI's Minneapolis Field Office investigated the disappearance for four decades. In February 2014, the FBI publicly confirmed, based on witness interviews obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, that Robinson had been killed during the occupation and buried on the reservation; the agency did not identify a specific burial site. Multiple individuals who were present during the occupation have been named in public reporting in connection with the incident; none has been charged, and in 2018 the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Dakota declined prosecution, citing insufficient evidence. Robinson was later declared legally dead. His remains have never been recovered. As of late 2025, family members and Native American advocacy groups were seeking Oglala Sioux Tribal Council approval for a non-invasive search of the Wounded Knee site using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs. The case is listed with NamUs as MP24046 and with the FBI as agency case number 198A-MP-58339. Anyone with information is asked to contact the FBI Minneapolis Field Office at 763-569-8000.
