His later accounts of the burial are less specific.

He knew that the family took the body.

He did not know where they went.

In later writings and interviews, he acknowledged the mystery and expressed no certainty about the location.

McGillicuddy’s later role as Indian Agent at Pine Ridge put him in a position where he might have learned more — if the information were available to be learned.

His position did not enable him to confirm the burial location, suggesting that even someone with significant authority and knowledge about the Pine Ridge community in the decades after 1877 could not access this specific piece of information.

This is evidence, in its way, of how well the protection worked: even the person who had been most intimately present at the death, who later had significant authority over the community that held the knowledge, did not find out where the burial was.