Legal Statement. [7] He further recollected: "I picked her up downtown and told her I was going to take her to my home". MacDonald wrote that in addition to the Mountain Village case, hes overseeing two other homicide trials and a sexual assault case that have all been significantly delayed due to a public defender withdrawing late into the case.. An update released by Anchorage Police four months later stated they had taken a then 21-year-old named Orion Lind into custody but no charges were brought over Brandon's murder. McKinnon said police are still trying to piece together what Ritchie did on a daily basis during the months he is believed to have been back in Anchorage. Police do not believe Ritchie was involved with any otherunsolved slayingsin 2016. State prosecutors say Darin Lee Jones, 54, and Shawn Michael Phillips, 52, killed Patricia Phelps, 48, in Anchorage's Spenard neighborhood in 2017. Copyright 2021 KTUU. die.". Zaz Hollander is a veteran journalist based in the Mat-Su and is currently an ADN local news editor and reporter. Passengers told CBS News that a "murder mystery" theme dinner had been taking place when the incident occurred, and several passengers first confused the crime for a hoax. An Alaska resident found a stray SD card lying on the street in late September and discovered gruesome content inside: images and video of a woman appearing to be assaulted and murdered. APDsays when Moren left the Gaslight Lounge later that night,he was followedby Roy Schauer, 46. All rights reserved. Anchorage police investigate a fatal shooting at the Holiday Gas Station located on Abbott Road on Wednesday evening, May 25, 2016. Resources can be found by calling Alaska 211 or visiting the State of Alaskas website to find treatment options. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. He always committed his murders at night, often around midnight or a short time after. According to the bail memo, Alaska State Troopers earlier this year recovered a skull with a gunshot wound in an area near the location Smith later provided. Police solved an Alaskan murder with a memory card found along road. This is a truly horrific case that is not the norm for our community, Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll said at a news conference, the Anchorage Daily News reported . The victim has been identified as 39-year-old Kristy Manzanares, from the US state of Utah. Police detectivesdon't attribute 2016's increase in homicides to any one cause. Time stamps on the images at the hotel showed they were taken in the early hours of Sept. 4, the affidavit said. MacDonald serves as the presiding judge for the Fairbanks-based Fourth Judicial District. [1], "Identifying [Eklutna Annie] means that no matter how you lived, whatever circumstances that you are in, that even after death, there is an equality here. She wore several articles of clothing, including a brown leather hip-length jacket, a light-colored knitted sleeveless shirt (possibly white, beige, or light gray in color), blue jeans, and red, knee-high, high-heeled, zip-up boots. A 22-year-old Alaska woman pleaded guilty to murdering her 19-year-old "best friend" in 2019 after a man who was allegedly catfishing her offered her $9 million to kill someone. or redistributed. While the agencys inflation-adjusted spending has doubled in the past 30 years, its felony caseload has tripled, it says. Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll told reporters Abouchuk's family reported her missing in February, but he said she had. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. As Merritt approachedAndrew Robertson-Goughnor, police said, Robertson-Goughnor shot him. The millionaires only demand for the payout was either photos or video of the slaying, according to court documents laying out first-degree murder and other charges against six people in the June 2 death of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman. Some people have speculated gangs are to blame for the bloodshed. This years Iditarod field is the smallest in history. "Same exactly happens to homicide cases. MacDonald declined to be interviewed, saying that Walters case is still open. Then, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, the womans body was found along Turnagain Arm, near the Rainbow trailhead. Rodgers went on to kill another man in Anchorage and shoot two others who survived before his 26-hour rampage ended. He had then stabbed her once in the back with a black-handled Buck knife as she lay face-down. AnAlaska man accused of brutally assaulting and murdering a woman who was seen strangled in videos found ona digital memory cardhasbeen charged with another death, authorities said Thursday. During an arraignment at Anchorage Jail Court Wednesday, a judge set Smiths bail at $750,0000 cash and appointed a public defender to represent him. Many questions remain unanswered Wednesday, including the identity of the woman. An ongoing Daily News and ProPublica investigation has found that one in three Alaska communities has no local law enforcement of any kind. Around 2010, he left Alaska and spent time in Las Vegas before moving to Virginia, where his parents now live. It's unclear who the woman is, but authorities are working to identify her and determine how she died. According to court papers, the group went off trail and followed a path to the bank of the Eklutna River, where Hoffman was bound, shot and thrown into the river. or redistributed. Brian Steven Smith, a 48-year-old reportedly from South Africa, was arrested at Ted Stevens International Airport after investigators linked him to the crime. Of the34 homicides in 2016, all but three are considered solved, with police identifying at least a main suspect, according to Sgt. In January 2013, an associate professor wrote a letter of recommendation for Ritchie, who was apparently applying for an internship. Market data provided by Factset. Reporter Jeff Parrott contributed to this story. Street fighting in Bakhmut but Russia not in control, Saving Private Ryan actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61, Alex Murdaugh's legal troubles are far from over, 'The nurses wanted me to feel guilty about my abortion, From Afghan TV fame to a US factory floor. But they point out the majority of them were either involved in risky behavior or killed by someone they knew. Parents would be wise to monitor the activity of their children online.. Authorities who reviewed the SD cards contents said they remembered Smith from another investigation and found he was registered in early September to a room at a local hotel which had the same carpet pattern as the one in the video. The FBI is investigating the death because it occurred in US waters. He said Eklutna Annie was either an exotic dancer from a local bar or a prostitute and that she was his first murder victim,[15] adding that she had been murdered in the fall or early winter of 1979. A 19-year-old from Anchorage, Alaska, was allegedly killed by her best friend and several other teen accomplices after they were promised millions of dollars for video evidence of the killing by a man who had catfished them. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Witnesses say she was travelling with her children. A woman in Alaska was walking her dog when a moose charged her from behind and kicked her in the head, according to shocking video captured by a bystander. (Obituary photo). In 2004 a 40-year-old lady named Merrian was taking a cruise to Alaska on board the Celebrity Mercury. Fox News Flash top headlines for Oct. 17 are here. According to a press release from the Alaska Department of Law, Charlie was sentenced to 75 years . And so somebody who might have been using emotional abuse and threats and that sort of thing may escalate into more physical violence, Pearson said. Born in Montana but raised in Alaska, Duke married, raised three children and worked jobs including as a teacher's aide. Doubek did not attend his scheduled arraignment Thursday. "Loose lips sink ships," Markiewicz said. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The victim has. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, It is routine for me to enter class seeing several other students at the board with James as he provides guidance not only for my class but other classes as well.". Troopers: Wasilla woman killed, husband charged with her murder, 2023 Iditarod pre-race coverage and Ceremonial Start, Melissa Fry has the forecast for the Iditarod restart in Willow, Animal rights group PETA continues targeting Iditarod sponsors. Smith, 48, appeared in Anchorage Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon. "That tells us other people believe it is a good place," he said. The killings happened in nearly every corner of Anchorage: from an Eagle River apartment complex toa normally quietsouth-sidesubdivision. All rights reserved. A Wasilla woman was shot four times at home Sunday night and her husband is charged with her murder, according to Alaska State Troopers. Ian Bobich, 29, was found shot to death outside this Elm Street apartment building just before midnight Monday, Oct. 24, 2016, on Government Hill. Ritchie is considered the main suspect in those killings, said Markiewicz. Other images showed her being strangled by a man who was yelling at her to die in what sounded like a foreign accent, at one point stomping on her throat. She said he never exhibited any violent tendencies such as those she heard of from police. The final images on the card show the womans body face down in the bed of a pickup, and were time-stamped Sept. 6. Theres also the question of how an SD card containing images and videos of a slaying, labeled Homicide at midtown Marriott, came to be discarded on a busy Anchorage street. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The memory card, which was labeled homicide at midtown Marriott, was given to police by the woman who found it, charging documents obtained by NBC affiliate KTUU in Anchorage showed. April 23, 2021. Doug Moody, a supervisor at the Public Defender Agency, said in a phone interview Tuesday that Cherot will be reviewing MacDonalds critique. At one point, the agencys seven-attorney Bethel office was down to three, he said. All but one of the victims in those cases were female. Police have not identified the victim, who is said to have been killed during the first week of September. Schilmiller offered Brehmer nine or more million dollars to carry out the murder and to have photographs and/or videos of the murder sent to him, the documents say. "She championed any child. The caller later told officers the card a small memory card used in portable digital devices was discarded on the street at the corner of Fairbanks Street and 13th Avenue in Fairview, near the Gambell Carrs store. A millionaire widower and her teenaged daughter take a fivestar cruise together. All rights reserved. Judges appoint public defenders for defendants who cant afford to hire their own lawyers. An Alaska resident found a stray SD card lying on the street in late September and discovered gruesome content inside: images and video of a woman appearing to be assaulted and murdered. They were all going to spend Christmas together the next day. When a composite sketch of the man suspected in the death of TreyveonThompson was released, more than 190 people called in tips, McKinnon said. He was returning to Anchorage, where he lives, Thim said. An economic thing happening? LOUISIANA MAN ARRESTED IN 1989 MURDER CASE: POLICE. [17], To date, Roxane Easland, Karen Evan, Megan Emerick, and Teresa Davis have been ruled out as being Eklutna Annie. MacDonald, who was appointed by then-Gov. Igou pleaded guilty on November 5, 2020 to the September 10, 2017 murder of Aurora Paint Company co-owner Gregory Gill. Contact her at [email protected]. Sarah Palin in 2007, admonished public defenders for specific professional failures in their handling of Walters case. All the white people are getting done first while the Natives get pushed to the back burner, Bill wrote in a Facebook message, when asked about the case. "That's what's been fascinating.". (The motion argued that the judge misunderstood the limits on public defenders, who do not choose which charges are filed.). When troopers arrived, they found Doubek lying just inside the front door. An employee at the city of Mountain Village said the city currently has no police officer and that no officials were available to comment on the case. (In addition to the 75 criminal attorneys, about 25 more work on appeals and childrens cases.) Gardner was a beloved community member, devoted mother and a part-owner of Hilltop Recycling, a long-standing staple of the Chugiak area, according to her family. The same year, Ritchie was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa, an honor society for two-year colleges, and graduated from Blue Mountain Community College with an associate degree in science, according to his diploma. ' said APD communications director MJ Thim. Deputy District Attorney Brittany Dunlop said the process calls for the case to be brought before a grand jury. Nationally, the homicide clearance rate hovers around 64 percent, according to statistics from the FBI. Two days later, both Brehmer and McIntosh were interviewed. The district covers an enormous and geographically diverse swath of Alaska, from the woodsy Alaska-Canada border in the Interior to the Bering Sea coast. This story was produced as part of a collaboration between Alaska Public Media and the Anchorage Daily News. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Clayton Andrew Charlie, who pleaded guilty in 2019 to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of a groundskeeper at the Alaska Zoo, has been sentenced to 55 years in prison. The show Very Scary People profiled Robert Hansen in "The Butcher Baker". The callertold police the memory card was found layingin the middle of the street in the Fairview neighborhood of Anchorage. (Bill Roth / ADN). [5][3][10], An autopsy of Eklutna Annie's body revealed she was petite in stature,[11] and most likely white, although she may have had a degree of Native American heritage. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster gave invocation at Kenai Assembly meeting, Even more cruise ships are coming to Alaska in 2020. The Anchorage Police Department has identified the victim as Kathleen J. Henry, 30, according to a statement released Thursday afternoon. Smiths wife of five years, Stephanie Bissland, told KTUU on Oct. 10 that Smith was a good husband, and she did not believe the allegations against him. July 27, 2017 / 10:16 AM / CBS News A suspect is in custody Thursday morning after a woman was found dead on a cruise ship in Alaska. Alaska Public Media 2022. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Seven Cold Case Task Force offices across the nation, dedicated to solving cold cases involving missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, are opening in the next few weeks, one expected to open in Anchorage. There were no immediate details aboutthe earlierinvestigation involving Smith. The death on Tuesday night triggered a lockdown of the 3,400-passenger ship. He also told officials Brehmer communicated with him throughout the murder, and sent Snapchat photographs and videos of Hoffman while bound and then after the murder. Resources: If you are facing threatened or actual domestic violence, please discreetly call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or Abused Womens Aid in Crisis in Anchorage at 907-272-0100. Lucas Moren himself had cleaned up the bloody scene of the machete attack on his mother. We still dont know who she is and we dont know much about her," said Thim. A corrections officer told the court Doubek was on suicide protocols and unable to participate. 32. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Pilot Project sites will implement initial response plans for tribal communities' response to new missing and murdered persons cases Anchorage, Alaska - United States Attorney Bryan Schroder announced Alaska's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Pilot Project (Pilot Project) today. Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com, Timothy Hoffman, right, father of slain teenager Cynthia Hoffman receives support from Edie Grunwald, left, who's son David Grunwald was murdered in Nov. 2016, as they entered a Superior courtroom for the arraignment of Cynthia's murder suspects in the Nesbett Courthouse on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 in Anchorage, Alaska. Nancy Furlow . In an unusual order, an Alaska judge has declared a crisis in the states courts, saying that turnover among public defenders is delaying criminal trials and denying justice for victims and defendants alike. Skidmore said the number of prosecutors is rebounding following a reduction years earlier and now includes more than 120 attorneys. [9] A box of Salem matches were found in a pocket of her jacket, indicating she may have been a smoker. According to police, the arrest came. In that case, her father was charged with the killing. She is the only victim of Robert Hansen to remain unidentified. You're going to kill me!" All rights reserved. / 61.1254; -149.5234. "That's our plan to create a better police presence," McKinnon said. A man has been arrested in connection to the murder of a woman aboard a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska, police say, in what has been described as a "domestic disturbance". Police say the majority of the deaths fall into the same tragic but predictable circumstances that thread through homicides every year: domestic violence, personal disputes escalated by a weapon, robberies gone bad. She had hit the wall, an acting supervisor later told the judge. All rights reserved. According to the Violence Policy Center, Alaska ranked number one in murder of women by men in incidents where there were one victim and one offender from 2014 through 2018. Police immediately suspected John Newman's nephew, 23-year-old Kirby Anthoney. Alaska cops charged an Anchorage man with murder Tuesday after shocking videos found on a mysterious memory card allegedly captured the suspect assaulting and killing a woman whose remains. An autopsy report concluded that she had been killed by a single stab wound to the back. An affidavit filed with the criminal complaint against him details a strange chain of events that led police to a trove of gruesome videos and photos. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News). Just two years ago, in 2014, Anchorage ended the year with 13 homicides on the books the lowest in two decades. Witness memories fade, Skidmore said. Our salaries up here used to be the draw, an attorney for the agency said. Published: Jul. "It depends on what we're looking at as far as danger," said McKinnon, speaking generally about citizen safety and homicides in 2016. Delay is always the friend of the defense because it makes it harder for prosecutors to put on their case.. MacDonalds order and decision are part of the ongoing effort to hold a criminal trial in Fairbanks for Walters, who was 34 when troopers arrested him Oct. 5, 2017, in Mountain Village on charges of murder, assault and evidence tampering. In some villages, city and tribal leaders say they have no choice but to hire convicted criminals as cops. This week, Brian Smith, 48, was charged with first-degree murder in the case, the Anchorage Police Department said in a Wednesday statement. At one June hearing, shortly before she resigned, the public defender noted she was working a double case load. Police had found Henrys remains on the side of a highway on Oct. 2. ANCHORAGE - Following a three-week trial in U.S. District Court, a federal jury convicted an Anchorage man on charges of murder in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise, using a firearm to commit murder in a drug trafficking crime, drug conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. A district attorney has been selected to oversee the Bethel office and Skidmore said he is in talks with the North Slope Borough in hopes of funding the first Utqiagvik-based district attorney in several years. And they say despite the number of killings, suspects are at large in very few of the cases. Market data provided by Factset. McKinnon pointed out that in the same year Anchorage set a homicide record, it also set a record for thenumber of touristsvisiting the city. In 2017, the year Queenie was killed, the rate of women killed by men in Alaska was three times the national average and the highest in the United States, according to the Violence Policy Center. Police have not yet pointed to any known motive in the cases where Ritchie is identified as a suspect. Couldnt take it anymore., A second note was found among Doubeks belongings that according to troopers, discussed possible drug dealers and that one of them was having an affair with his wife.. Doubek and Gardner shared a home in a Wasilla neighborhood off of Snowshoe Lane. She deserves just as much as a search for her people as any other victim, as any other survivor. When is Eurovision and how do you get tickets? You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! The race is on: What to know about the 2023 Iditarod, No injuries in downtown Anchorage commercial building collapse. Cellphone records trace Smith to having been at the place where the remains were found within minutes of when the last photo on the SD card was taken, police documents outline. Other witnesses described seeing a bloody man threatening to jump off the ship. But he added that those specific failures were symptoms of broader dysfunction, like public defender and prosecutor jobs going unfilled because of obstacles to recruitment and retention, as well as travel restrictions. Smith originally pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, sexual assault and tampering in the death of his first victim, 30-year-old Kathleen Henry, before admitting to the crime. She has not been identified. [sic] A manwith some sort of English accent can be heard in the video as well. She was aged between 16 and 25 at the time of her death, and her body was discovered several months after her murder. Other images showed the woman covered in a white sheet, being moved through a parking lot to a truck. According to court documents, Denali Brehmer, 18, confessed to killing Cynthia Hoffman on June 2 at the . James Dale Ritchie was a senior at East High School in 1994. Last week, 23-year-old Darla Velador of Anchorage was stabbed to death. Mar 6th 600p DARLA Recently retired newly weds embark on their third tropical cruise in less than year. He also allegedly told authorities that he and Brehmer discussed killing another person, but the plan was abandoned, and he admitted to blackmailing Brehmer into raping people. APD asked morning commuters to avoid the area. He was sentenced to 498 years in prison for the murder spree. Police and a crime scene investigation unit spent much of Tuesday afternoon and evening at the home where Smith lived with his wife, hauling away a black pickup, neighbors said. CLICK TO VISIT THE ALL-NEW FOXBUSINESS.COM. The remarks by the veteran judge came in a 37-page order to delay the murder trial of Alexie Walters, a man accused of beating his girlfriend, Gertrude Queenie, to death in 2017 in Mountain Village, on the Yukon River in Southwest Alaska. Her eldest daughter Chloe was killed with her. Gardner slept upstairs. [4][7][n 1], Eklutna Annie's body was markedly decomposed, indicating her death had occurred months prior. ", Autumn Smith. [14], In 1984, Robert Hansen admitted that he was responsible for the victim's death. "She sounded pretty desperate, but the crew came up as quickly as they could", he said, adding that the incident occurred on the 9th floor of the 19-deck ship. So far, nothing has been found. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) The Iditarod, the world's most famous sled dog race, starts Saturday with a fan-friendly ceremonial run through the streets of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.
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