Bemidji Woman Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Murder and Assault on the Red Lake Indian Reservation

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Bemidji woman has been sentenced to 240 months in prison for her role in a murder and an assault that took place in August 2019 on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, announced United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger. 

According to court documents, shortly before 1:00 a.m. on August 12, 2019, Alexia Gah Gi Gay Mary Cutbank, 21, Mia Faye Sumner, 21, of Duluth, and Daniel Charles Barrett, 31, of Redby, entered the garage of a Red Lake residence where Daniel Alan Johnson was known to reside. Cutbank, Sumner, and Barrett were masked and armed. Once inside, Cutbank fired multiple gunshots, fatally wounding Johnson and seriously injuring a second victim, T.B.S. The three defendants returned to the waiting vehicle and left the scene. To assist the defendants in avoiding arrest, Rose Celeste Siewert, 50, of Cass Lake, drove Cutbank, Barrett, and Sumner off the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

On September 20, 2022, Cutbank pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting murder in the second degree and one count of aiding and abetting assault resulting in serious bodily injury. Cutbank was sentenced yesterday before Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson. Sumner was sentenced on March 9, 2023, to 120 months in prison and Siewert was sentenced on March 8, 2023, to 48 months in prison. Barrett will be sentenced at a later date.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Red Lake Tribal Police Department, the FBI, the FBI Headwaters Safe Trails Task Force, the Duluth Police Department, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Deidre Y. Aanstad prosecuted the case.