April 23, 2021. (Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP) Author: The Associated Press Published: 10:58 PM EDT August 9, 2019 Updated: 3:40 AM EDT August 12, 2019 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP . "She championed any child. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News). Clark asked that he be appointed a public defender and set his bail at $500,000 cash appearance bond and a $250,000 cash performance bond. You're going to kill me!" 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. Michelle Theriault Boots is a reporter who covers news and features about life in Alaska, and has been focusing on corrections and psychiatric care issues in the state. The victim was Robert Pfeil, a 55-year-old senior pilot for Alaska Airlines, who was shot from another car as he drove from work on Oct. 12, 1985. He worked in construction and kitchens, said Marcy, a paralegal. At one June hearing, shortly before she resigned, the public defender noted she was working a double case load. This week, Brian Smith, 48, was charged with first-degree murder in the case, the Anchorage Police Department said in a Wednesday statement. Police Say A Teen Killed Her Friend After A Catfish Promised Her $9 Anchorage police say they've arrested a man for the murder of a woman whose body had been dumped a week ago on the Seward Highway south of Anchorage. What science tells us about the afterlife. But the 2016 toll also reflects one extraordinary factor:a potential serial killer apparently targeting strangers. Market data provided by Factset. All rights reserved. Police said they will release the name of the deceased woman once her identity is confirmed and family is notified. Police immediately suspected John Newman's nephew, 23-year-old Kirby Anthoney. Detectives recognized Brian Steven Smith from the graphic videos because Smith is involved in a separate ongoing investigation, said Anchorage Police Department spokesman MJ Thim. 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. This story was produced as part of a collaboration between Alaska Public Media and the Anchorage Daily News. All rights reserved. The trial has been delayed at least 15 times at the request of the defense, according to MacDonalds order. In September 2020, a revised facial reconstruction of the victim was released by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 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. Nearly a week prior, on Sept. 30, someone called Anchorage Policeclaiming to have "an SD card containing a video of a homicide," according to a press release from authorities. Around 2010, he left Alaska and spent time in Las Vegas before moving to Virginia, where his parents now live. In 2011 and 2012, Ritchie was named to the President's List at Blue Mountain Community College in Weyers Cave, in western Virginia, according to school documents obtained by Alaska Dispatch News. "They are engaging in this behavior where maybe a mature person would say, 'I'd never do that,' but to the people involved this is real stuff to them disrespect. Paula Zorawski,answered her front dooronly to be shot in the face by people, Anchorage police believe, were hoping to rob her son of marijuana. has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, and was taken to Anchorage Jail. [Here are the most-read Alaska Dispatch News stories of 2016]. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. At the scene, troopers found the door handle to Gardners bedroom door had been broken off, with damage marks matching the blade of a broken maul found nearby. His hair was long. Together, the homicides pose a question for Anchorage: What made 2016 so deadly? Kristy Manzanares had been travelling with a large group, including her children, according to witnesses. 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. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Our salaries up here used to be the draw, an attorney for the agency said. APD officer Arn Salao was wounded and the suspect, James Dale Ritchie, was killed in the early-morning shootout. He had then stabbed her once in the back with a black-handled Buck knife as she lay face-down. Thim declined to say anything about the other investigation, or whether Smith is a suspect in other crimes. 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. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. About three weeks before Hoffman was killed, Brehmer and Schilmiller began discussing a plan to rape and murder someone in Alaska, according to court documents. die.". A Snapchat video showed two of the teens accused of killing 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman near the Thunderbird Falls trailhead in June apparently discussing the crime. "Is it a greater population? The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. 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. The REAL Deaths Behind The Show (Episode Guide) - Emma Cruises Another factor no one could have predicted: James Dale Ritchie, who could prove to bethe most prolific killer in AnchoragesinceJoshua Wade, though APD is not ready to call him that. According to police, the arrest came after someone reported finding a digital storage device containing video of the killing. All rights reserved. She deserves just as much as a search for her people as any other victim, as any other survivor. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Man accused of killing woman, recording it is charged in 2nd Alaska murder In a separate federal investigation rising from the investigation, Schilmiller and Brehmer were indicted Tuesday on federal child pornography charges, including production and coercion and enticement of a minor. On the whole they are to be commended for all they do in the face of serious institutional limits, he wrote. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News). New documents from Ritchie'stime at community collegein Virginiapresent a portrait of a striving engineering student whose work was so good that a professor wrote in a 2013 letter of recommendation that he gradedRitchie's exams first and used them as the test's key. 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. 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. The state of Alaskas criminal justice system is operating on the fringes, barely able to protect against the deprivation of fundamental rights, barely able to respond in a professionally responsible manner to Alaska (s) rising violent crime rates, Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Michael A. MacDonald wrote in a blistering Aug. 30 decision, which has previously not been reported. Photos apparently show the woman underneath a blanketon a hotel luggage cart near a truck and in the truck bed, per the document. Throughout 2016, Ritchie murdered upwards of five individuals in and around Anchorage, Alaska, most of whom were in parks or along bike paths. There has been some suggestion by family members out-of-state that he had recently showed signs of mental illness, McKinnon confirmed, but added, "I don't think we have any concrete evidence to support that.". Online court records did not list an attorney for Schilmiller. Igou pleaded guilty on November 5, 2020 to the September 10, 2017 murder of Aurora Paint Company co-owner Gregory Gill. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. He has not yet entered a plea. Marcytook every votive candle she could find in her house, plus a piece of Christmas pie in plasticwrap, to leave as an offering at a makeshift altar another corner of Anchorage turned into an impromptu memorial for a person killed in 2016. Corrections:This article originally incorrectly stated that a homicide had taken place in the Kempton Hills subdivision in 2016. Two days later, both Brehmer and McIntosh were interviewed. The department is also trying to directly ask the public for help more often. [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. "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. An ongoing Daily News and ProPublica investigation has found that one in three Alaska communities has no local law enforcement of any kind. Anthoney and his girlfriend moved to Anchorage from Twin Falls, Idaho, in 1985 when authorities in Idaho accused him of raping and brutally beating a twelve-year-old girl at a campground near Twin Falls. 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. Alaska woman pleads guilty to killing 'best friend' after man catfished 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. If you are considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or Stop Suicide Alaska at 1-877-266-HELP. Legal Statement. After troopers arrived, Doubek was given first aid and taken to a hospital. The district attorney's office also decided not to pursue criminal charges in the shooting death ofAaron Syvinski, 30, which was found to be in self-defense. She said she was not a police officer in the village at the time of the killing. Anchorage man sentenced to 55 years in prison for murder of Alaska Zoo Police do not believe Ritchie was involved with any otherunsolved slayingsin 2016. The millionaire's only demand for the payout was either . Alaska Native Man's Unsolved Murder Part of 'Epidemic' Ritchie, the 40-year-oldkilled in a downtown shootout with policeafter he wounded an officer in an encounter early Nov. 12, is the prime suspect in the deaths of five people in 2016, APD said. Brehmer and McIntosh used Leylands pickup on June 2 to take Hoffman on a hike at Thunderbird Falls, a popular location about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Anchorage. Reporter Jeff Parrott contributed to this story. Delay is always the friend of the defense because it makes it harder for prosecutors to put on their case.. (Image from East High School 1994 yearbook and APD handout). But its workload is growing more quickly just between the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years, it saw a 16 percent increase in felony cases statewide, according to data the agency has presented to the Legislature. 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. But at one of the many stops along the way, a grizzly discovery is made when crew membersfind the widower's body crammed into her own suitcase. MacDonald denied the request, saying his findings are not an indictment of the Alaska Public Defender Agency nor its attorneys. "It depends on what we're looking at as far as danger," said McKinnon, speaking generally about citizen safety and homicides in 2016. Policeinvestigate the scene of an officer-involved shooting in downtown Anchorage onNovember 12, 2016. Nationally, the homicide clearance rate hovers around 64 percent, according to statistics from the FBI. She has not been identified. He was unable to "remember whether she was a prostitute or [a] dancer", although he did state he believed she was from Kodiak, Alaska. 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. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Police are careful not to blame victims of violent crimes. Contact her at mtheriault@adn.com. "That tells us other people believe it is a good place," he said. Brehmer ultimately admitted to being solicited by Schilmiller to commit the murder and that the murder was planned once she realized she had been catfished by Schilmiller, the documents say. Michelle Theriault Boots is a reporter who covers news and features about life in Alaska, and has been focusing on corrections and psychiatric care issues in the state. "We haven't found evidence that anyone other than Ritchie is involved.". Overwhelmingly, people were killed with guns: Gunfire was involved in all but four of the year's homicides. shut down anelementary school and a middle school, don't attribute 2016's increase in homicides to any one cause, mother accused of suffocating her infant daughter, killed in a downtown shootout with police, Here are the most-read Alaska Dispatch News stories of 2016. [9] A box of Salem matches were found in a pocket of her jacket, indicating she may have been a smoker. 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. Sarah Palin in 2007, admonished public defenders for specific professional failures in their handling of Walters case. She is the only victim of Robert Hansen to remain unidentified. Smith is originally from South Africa. However, when Eklutna Annie realized he was not driving in the direction of his home, she first asked him to drive her back to Anchorage, before he unsuccessfully attempted to convince her he was driving her to another safe location, claiming he was driving a "little further", to which Eklutna Annie replied, "Well, I'm not!" It had 39 images and 12 videos that recorded the alleged crime. And they say despite the number of killings, suspects are at large in very few of the cases. ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A Utah couple was celebrating their wedding anniversary aboard an Alaska cruise when the husband was found covered in blood next to his wife's lifeless body, a frenzy of . State prosecutors say Darin Lee Jones, 54, and Shawn Michael Phillips, 52, killed Patricia Phelps, 48, in Anchorage's Spenard neighborhood in 2017. Deputy District Attorney Brittany Dunlop said the process calls for the case to be brought before a grand jury. Homicide detectives began combing through the 39 images and 12 videos on the card, all documenting a horrifying scene of violence against an unknown woman. On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Smith onmurder and evidence tampering charges in Abouchuk's death. Officers arrested Brian Steven Smith, 48, Tuesday afternoon, an Anchorage Police Department statement said. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen). An Indiana man is accused of " catfishing " an Alaska teenager and convincing her to murder her supposed best friend for $9 million with the help of four others. The next year,that number nearly doubled, to 25. 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. The Emerald Princess, operated by Princess Cruises, had departed from Seattle on Sunday for a week-long trip. Police recognized the man in the videos as Brian Smith, an immigrant from South Africa police knew of from a previous investigation," according to the affidavit. 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. Pilot Projects Launched to Address Missing and Murdered Indigenous APD asked morning commuters to avoid the area. He then attempted to placate her, before pulling a gun, saying: "You do exactly as I say and you won't get hurt. There wasSelena Mullenax, a young mother studying for her GEDfound shotin a public park on a winter morning. Rodgers went on to kill another man in Anchorage and shoot two others who survived before his 26-hour rampage ended. The death on Tuesday night triggered a lockdown of the 3,400-passenger ship. But APD isnot ready to close the cases. Detectives knew almost immediately that something was wrong, that someones loved one was killed when they found her remains, he said. Thursday evening Live Doppler 13 forecast - Feb. 9, 2023. He also told them hehad shot another woman and revealed where he dumped her body. Or are people just angrier?" The graphic videos show a woman being strangled and a mans voice saying justdie, the Associated Press reported. 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. An earlier version of the chart in this story incorrectly stated that it included fatal officer-involved shootings and justifiable homicides. A 48-year-old Anchorage man was charged with murder after someone found a digital card containing dozens of videos and photos that authorities say show him beating and killing a woman in a. Such delays typically benefit defendants and make it harder for prosecutors to secure convictions, said Alaska Deputy Attorney General John Skidmore. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster gave invocation at Kenai Assembly meeting, Even more cruise ships are coming to Alaska in 2020. Police solved an Alaskan murder with a memory card found along road. Police have not yet pointed to any known motive in the cases where Ritchie is identified as a suspect. Anchorage police identified thesecond victim as Veronica Abouchuk. Without a doubt, the new director will get this order for a variety of reasons, and will be thinking about how we can do things more efficiently, Moody said. Hoffman, 19, died from a gunshot wound to the. Parents would be wise to monitor the activity of their children online.. According to police, the arrest came. McIntosh was arrested, but Brehmer denied any involvement in the death. There were no immediate details aboutthe earlierinvestigation involving Smith. A man accused of killing a woman and recording it on an SD card later found in the street has been indicted in the murder of a second woman in Alaska, authorities announced Thursday. According to the affidavit, Doubek, who had reportedly struggled with substance abuse, had been growing increasingly paranoid that his wife was having an affair, and because of his behavior, Gardner had considered divorcing him. For all the good the internet can do, it can be a very dark place, Bryan Schroder, the U.S. attorney in Alaska, said at a news conference Tuesday. The woman, who has not yet been identified, is described as having long dark hair and possibly being Alaska Native. "What we're seeing is that when we ask the community for assistance, they really respond to us," he said. Brehmer agreed to commit the murder for him.. The Public Defender Agencys budget, meanwhile, has grown by 9 percent in the past two years. Published: Jul. The year's final tally surpasses even the 29 deathsthat occurred in 1995, at the time attributed by officials to gang and drug activity. All rights reserved. The public defender representing Walters was juggling 200 cases and resigned due to mental exhaustion a week before the trial was to begin in July, according to the order. An Alaskan murder mystery has been solved thanks to a SD card found laying in the street. [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. For many, it was the year the city's violence hit home,even if they didn't personally know any of the victims. A millionaire widower and her teenaged daughter take a fivestar cruise together. "I'd say a great number of our citizens don't engage in any activity that's considered dangerous.". Market data provided by Factset. The domestic violence-related cases range from amother accused of suffocating her infant daughter,to a man accused of fatally shootinghis son-in-law. Alaska murder mystery twist: Memory card found along road shows man Police said the body was found near milepost 108 of Seward Highway on Oct. 2. Smith is charged with first-degree murder. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Police point at recent hiring of new officers as an effort to make the city safer. Brian . Anchorage police say theyve arrested a man for the murder of a woman whose body had been dumped a week ago on the Seward Highway south of Anchorage. Princess Cruises said 39-year-old Kristy Manzanares of Utah. He stepped out of the car and said goodbye to his mom and Marcy. Brian Smith . Eklutna Annie is the name given to an unidentified murder victim whose body was discovered in a wooded area, one mile south of South Eklutna Lake Road in Eklutna, Anchorage, Alaska, in July 1980. "James recognized the potential issue and has appropriate (sic) adjusted his behavior to make himself more inviting for others to seek help. Bill said that in her experience with the criminal justice system, cases involving white defendants and victims appear to be resolved more quickly than cases involving Alaska Natives. [10], As Eklutna Annie struggled against his efforts to overpower her, she had screamed, "Don't kill me! The videos show a woman being strangled and in one Smith can be heard saying just die. The videosshow Henry face down in the back of a truck. 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. Police have not identified the victim, who is said to have been killed during the first week of September. Copyright 2021 KTUU. (Google). 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 . But they point out the majority of them were either involved in risky behavior or killed by someone they knew. Jorge Rea-Villa, a handsome tattoo artist who went to a Fourth of July barbecue and ended up dead. Videos and photos show brutal attack of woman in Anchorage hotel room While the agencys inflation-adjusted spending has doubled in the past 30 years, its felony caseload has tripled, it says.
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