Wakpala Woman Sentenced to 13 Years for Mother’s Stabbing

Aberdeen, SD – A young mother has received a lengthy prison sentence for a brutal Christmas Eve stabbing that left her own mother dead on the Standing Rock Reservation.

Malania Rose Fast Horse, 25, of Wakpala, South Dakota, was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for her role in her mother’s death. U.S. District Judge Charles B. Kornmann handed down the sentence on June 23, 2025, after Fast Horse had pleaded guilty to Voluntary Manslaughter in March of the same year.

According to court documents, Fast Horse’s brutal attack on her mother occurred at their home on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation on December 24, 2024. The two women had been arguing, and in a fit of rage, Fast Horse stabbed her mother multiple times in the chest, arm, and hand. Despite her brother’s efforts to save her, Fast Horse’s mother succumbed to her injuries.

After the attack, Fast Horse calmly left the scene, telling her grandmother and brother what she had done. Her brother then ran to the neighbor’s house, where he found his mother lying in a pool of blood. Emergency Medical Services were quickly called, but it was too late to save her.

The case was prosecuted in federal court due to the Major Crimes Act, which mandates that violent crimes committed in Indian country be tried in federal court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Thunem led the prosecution, assisted by the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs – Office of Justice Services, which investigated the crime.

Fast Horse was immediately taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service, where she will serve her 13-year sentence. As part of her sentence, she was also ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund and will serve three years of supervised release upon her release from prison.