Dillion Millard and Charmaine Medicine pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after a yearslong investigation into Alize Millard’s 2019 death.
PIERRE, S.D. — A federal judge has sentenced Dillion Millard and Charmaine Medicine to 30 years in prison each for the 2019 second-degree murder of a 15-year-old boy on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, ending a case that remained under investigation for nearly five years before a confession.
U.S. District Judge Eric C. Schulte sentenced Millard, 27, of Rosebud, and Medicine, 31, of Parmelee, on Aug. 10, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota. Each will serve five years of supervised release after leaving prison and was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Millard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Aug. 13, 2025, while Medicine entered the same plea on May 12, 2026. A federal grand jury had indicted both in June 2024.
The victim was identified by his family and local news reports as 15-year-old Alize Millard. Prosecutors said the killing occurred during the early morning hours of July 9, 2019, in Todd County on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. According to federal authorities, Millard and Medicine picked up the teenager from his home and told him they were going to drink alcohol together. The group went to a nearby park and then walked to a secluded area, where prosecutors said Alize became intoxicated.
Federal prosecutors said Millard then strangled the teenager. After Alize stopped struggling, authorities said Millard moved his body to a nearby tree and secured him there with a belt. Millard and Medicine left the area but returned several hours later, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors said they then set fire to the body in an effort to destroy evidence. Hikers found Alize the following afternoon, July 10. Authorities have described those facts as part of the conduct underlying the pair’s guilty pleas.
The investigation continued for years without charges. Federal prosecutors said the case remained active until May 2024, when Millard confessed to his actions and Medicine’s involvement. The confession helped lead to the federal indictments the following month. The case was investigated by Rosebud Sioux Tribe Law Enforcement Services, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Albertson prosecuted the case.
Local reporting based on federal court filings provided additional information about what authorities said preceded the killing. KELO reported that a factual basis filed in Medicine’s case said she was concerned that Alize might provide police with information connected to another criminal matter. The filing also said Millard believed the teenager was romantically interested in Medicine. Those accounts came from court documents tied to the defendants’ guilty pleas rather than from findings reached after a trial.
The case drew renewed attention after the August sentencing. Local radio station KELO-FM reported that Schulte described the case during sentencing as among the most disturbing he had encountered during his time on the bench. Alize’s mother said after the hearing that she believed the defendants should have received life sentences, according to the station. People, citing KELO-TV, reported that she wanted her son remembered for his “beautiful smile.”
Alize’s grandmother, Mary Gibbs, also spoke publicly about the years her family spent grieving while the investigation remained unresolved. She told KELO-TV that dealing with the loss had been difficult and said she could not forgive Millard for what had been taken from the family. People reported that Alize had been staying with Gibbs at the time of his death. Millard was identified in that reporting as Alize’s cousin.
U.S. Attorney Ron Parsons said after the sentencing that he was deeply saddened by the crime but relieved that Alize’s family had received answers and what he described as a measure of justice. Federal prosecutors handled the case under the Major Crimes Act, which gives the federal government jurisdiction over certain serious offenses committed in Indian Country rather than leaving those prosecutions to state court.
Millard and Medicine were remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after their sentencing hearings. Their 30-year prison terms will be followed by five years of federal supervised release, according to the Justice Department. The sentencing brings the federal prosecution to a close nearly seven years after Alize Millard was killed.