Listen to my podcast about murder and mystery in the last frontier. Each episode covers either a murder, a series of murders, or a mysterious disappearance from the recent or distant past in Alaska. You can link to all of my episodes here, or listen to it on your favorite podcast app.
Below is the list of all my podcast episodes. Be sure to check out past episodes and subscribe, so you won’t miss one.
Episode 1: The McCarthy Massacre of 1983: The residents living within a fifty-mile radius of McCarthy, Alaska enjoyed their solitary lives, but they looked forward to gathering and socializing each Tuesday while they waited for their mail plane. Everything changed on March 1st, 1983. Mail day would never be the same again. Listen
Episode 2: The Disappearance of Laura Henderson: What happened to Laura Henderson? One of the most controversial court cases in the history of the state of Alaska resulted from the disappearance of a woman on Kodiak Island in 1986. At best, this case is an example of an inept police investigation, a prosecution determined to win at any cost, and inadequate defense counsel. At worst, this case represents a corrupt police force and perhaps even a corrupt judicial system. To this day, though, people still ask, “What happened to Laura Henderson?” Listen
Episode 3: The Investor Murders: Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Murder Case: What happened on the F.V. Investor on a September night in 1982 in the sleepy village of Craig, Alaska? By the time investigators extinguished the flames on the burning vessel, the remains of eight people had been reduced to little more than bone fragments. Who committed this violent crime, and what was the motive? Listen
Episode 4: The Murder of Sophie
Episode 5: The Hunter: Serial Killer Robert Hansen: Investigators believe Robert Hansen murdered at least thirty women in Alaska between 1971 and 1983. With some of his victims, Hansen brutally raped them and then told them to run while he hunted them down as if they were big game trophies. Listen
Episode 6: The Newman Family Murders: This episode covers the 1987 murders of a mother and her two daughters. This crime angered and terrified Anchorage residents, and they wondered who could commit such a brutal act, and would he strike again? Listen.
Episode 7: The North Pole Murders: After a string of closely spaced murders of young women near Fairbanks in the late 1970s and early 80s, the abductions and murders stopped. Troopers didn’t believe the vicious killer had suddenly quit murdering young women, but they thought the predator had moved somewhere else. Unfortunately, at the time, they had no database to track the killer’s movements beyond Alaska. Only the deductive reasoning and hard work of seasoned investigators traced the monster four thousand miles to his new hunting grounds. Listen.
Episode 8: Congressmen Hale Boggs and Nick Begich Disappear in Alaska: On October 16th, 1972, a Cessna 310 with the tail number N1812H operated by Pan Alaska Airways disappeared somewhere between Anchorage and Juneau, Alaska. The plane was piloted by Don Jonz, 38, the chief pilot for Pan Alaska. Jonz was a military veteran with more than 17,000 hours of flight time. The passengers on the plane were Alaska Congressman Nick Begich, 40, his aide Russell Brown, 37, and Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs, 58, the U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader. The three men were planning to attend an election rally for Begich in Juneau. Was the disappearance due to an accident or something far more sinister? Listen.
Episode 9: The Murders at Manley Hot Springs: Manley Hot Springs, located 160 miles west of Fairbanks, marks the end of the road, where civilization meets wilderness, and the boat landing in Manley Hot Springs offers the last portage for fishermen, trappers, and wanderers to launch their boats and travel further up the icy Tanana River. Because the road ends in Manley, residents admit they see their share of drifters and people trying to escape from somewhere or something. When Michael Silka arrived in Manley on Monday, May 13, 1984, folks accepted him as another straggler searching for a new life. They should have been terrified. Michael Silka was about to forever change sleepy Manley Hot Springs. Listen.
Episode 10: Bizarre Murder of a Floatplane Pilot: Anchorage, Alaska is the small plane
Episode 11: The Tanana Tragedy: You might be familiar with the recent National Geographic documentary series, Alaska State Troopers. The show followed several troopers from different areas of the state as they made their daily rounds. Two of the troopers featured on the show were Sergeant Patrick “Scott” Johnson and Gabriel “Gabe” Rich. Both men worked out of the Alaska State Troopers’ Fairbanks Rural Service Unit. A camera crew was not with the men on the fateful day of May 1st, 2014. Listen
Episode 12: The Chulitna Charmer: Until Memorial Day weekend in 1997, Paul Stavenjord seemed to have succeeded at escaping his criminal past, but then something in him snapped, leaving two people dead and forever altering the course of Stavenjord’s life. Listen
Episode 13: The Coast Guard Murders: The double homicide I describe in this episode occurred on a secure Coast Guard base near the town of Kodiak, Alaska on Kodiak Island, approximately 60 miles from where I live. This murder happened toward the end of the most brutal winter anyone on Kodiak can remember, and when the police did not quickly apprehend the killer, tempers flared, and citizens carried firearms wherever they went. Our mail plane pilot, reporting the news to us on his weekly stop, compared the residents in town to a powder keg ready to blow. When it was all over, many in law enforcement and the judicial system praised the investigation, but at the time it seemed as if no one was doing anything to look for and apprehend the killer. Listen
Episode 14: Serial Murderer Gary Zieger: Gary Zieger, a brutal serial killer, stalked the streets of Anchorage in the early 1970s. We’ll never know how many people Zieger killed, but eventually, the psychopath made a fatal mistake. Listen
Episode 15: Who Took the Fandel Children? Some time during the late-night hours of September 5 or the early morning hours of September 6, 1978, Scott Fandel, 13, and Amy Fandel, 8, disappeared from their Sterling, Alaska home on the Kenai Peninsula, 136 miles (218.9 km) south of Anchorage. The mystery of what happened to the Fandel children has baffled Alaska State Troopers for over four decades. How can two kids vanish from their home without a trace? Listen
Episode 16: Murder North of the Arctic Circle: Bitter cold, a clash of cultures, and a language barrier all played a part in this crime, but the primary cause, sadly, was something we see every day in all cultures. A father gave his son a gift he believed would make his son more of a man and help him find his way in the world. Unfortunately, the father did not understand his son and his son’s problems, and his well-meaning present ended up causing his son great harm and ending the lives of three good men. Listen
Episode 17: A Monster Moved to Anchorage: Serial Killer Israel Keyes: A monster moved to Anchorage in 2007. Israel Keyes didn’t look evil; he appeared normal. To those who crossed his path, he seemed like a dedicated businessman, a doting father, and a loving boyfriend. No one could see the darkness lurking inside him, but by the time he moved to Alaska, Israel Keyes was already a thief, an arsonist, a rapist, and a serial killer. He did not give up these hobbies when he arrived in Anchorage. Listen
Episode 18: Alaska Serial Killer Joshua Wade: Around the same time Israel Keyes was active, another serial killer stalked the residents of Anchorage, but the story of Joshua Wade and his crimes is far different than that of Israel Keyes. Investigators consider Wade intelligent, but he did not stalk his victims or plan his crimes. His crimes were sloppy, happened on the spur of the moment, and usually were the result of him losing his temper. The legal system should have stopped Joshua Wade long before it did. Listen
Episode 19: The Machete Killer: We’ve all seen the horror movie where a stranger towers over his unsuspecting victim while she sleeps, and she awakes just in time to see him swing the machete toward her head. Imagine if this is no horror movie but a terrible, true event, happening as you struggle to clear your mind from sleep and attempt to focus on your survival instincts. Now, what if you know the maniac wielding the machete, and he is someone close to you? Can you fathom anything so horrible? Elann Moren had no choice; she had to grapple with the situation and spring into action. In one moment, her beautiful, new life turned into a horrible nightmare. Listen
Episode 20: The Teen Who Ordered a Hit on Her Mother: Most teenagers fight with their parents, and during a heated argument, some kids might even scream, “I hate you” at their mother or father, but such disagreements signal normal growing pains. Few teens order a hit on a parent, simply because the child feels the parent is too strict. Listen
Episode 21: Double Murder at a Kodiak Fish Site: During the summer of 1988, I remember the whispers spreading across the island, first about two missing brothers who were fishermen in Uganik Bay, and later, about the mother of those two men discovering their bodies buried in a shallow grave near their fish site. It was the first double homicide in recorded history on Kodiak Island. Uganik Bay, where the murders occurred, is only 30 air miles from where I live, but it’s fifty miles by boat, a world away on Kodiak Island. Listen
Episode 22: A Deadly Custody Battle: Neil Mackay was ruthless in both his personal and business dealings, and associates learned not to cross him. When a car bomb instantly killed his ex-wife, Muriel Pfeil, police knew Mackay had planned her murder, but they could not find enough evidence to charge him with the crime. Muriel’s brother, Bob, believed Mackay murdered his sister, and he fought Mackay for custody over Neil and Muriel’s son. Mackay became enraged and obsessed with Bob Pfeil and plotted how to destroy his nemesis. Listen
Episode 23: The Horrible Misdeeds of Papa Pilgrim: Alaska’s slogan is “The Last Frontier,” and to some people, this means Alaska is the wild west, a place with less law and order, and someplace they can live as they choose. The man who called himself Papa Pilgrim believed moving his family to the wilderness of Alaska offered him the opportunity to do anything he wanted. Papa Pilgrim was the worst kind of a hypocrite because he hid his crimes behind his religious zeal. Like a charismatic cult leader, Pilgrim could appear charming and persuasive in public, but there was another side of Papa Pilgrim, and this was the side his family saw all too often. Listen
Episode 24: The Seductress: As troopers investigated the death of Kent Leppink, they uncovered a complex web of lies, seduction, and betrayal, with Mechele Hughes at the center of it all. Mechele was only 23 years old when someone murdered Kent Leppink on a remote trail, but the beautiful young woman already had accumulated three fiancés who lavished her with furs, jewels, and money. Listen
Episode 25: Dangerous Trails: Most people understand they face the risk of encountering wild animals when they enter the woods in Alaska. What people do not expect is to be shot and killed while hiking on a remote trail, so when a series of murders occurred in parks and on trails near Anchorage in the summer of 2016, residents demanded more information from the police. Were the murders related to each other, was a serial killer stalking the city, was it safe to go hiking after dark, and what were the police doing to solve these murders? Police remained tight-lipped, and tensions rose. Listen
Episode 26: The Search for Bethany: Talkeetna, Alaska, is considered the gateway to Mt. Denali (McKinley), the highest mountain in North America. In the summer, tourists, including mountain climbers, hikers, flight-seers, and those who just want to view the majestic mountain, flock to Talkeetna. In the winter, though, the tourists leave, and the 800 residents who remain settle down to quiet lives, watching magnificent displays of the northern lights, playing in the deep snow, raising their children, and gathering for social events to help them forget the cold, dark winter. Talkeetna is a small town where nearly everyone knows everyone else, and when Bethany Correira disappeared, residents immediately responded to search for one of their own. Listen
Episode 27: The Homicidal Trooper: Most of us like to believe we can trust the police, but not everyone goes into law enforcement for the greater good. Some enter the police academy because they crave power over others and what better job than policing offers this power? I believe most police officers are good, and a few are bullies. John Patrick Addis, though, was the worst kind of police officer. He was a monster with a badge. Listen
Episode 28: Who Murdered Bonnie Craig? I can’t imagine the agony of losing a child for any reason, but how does a mother cope when she learns someone murdered her daughter, and she knows terror and pain must have marked the last moments of her child’s life? The book Justice for Bonnie deals with this issue. The well-written book profiles a mother’s fight to learn the truth about what happened to her daughter. Listen
Episode 29: A Bloody Anchorage Night: On the night of May 3, 1982, one veteran Anchorage police officer was quoted as saying, “This has got to be one of the grisliest nights I’ve ever seen.” Within an hour, seven people lost their lives. Three died in the Black Bull bar in the Muldoon section of Anchorage, and the other four were shot in Russian Jack Springs Park in East Anchorage. At first, investigators wondered if the two crime scenes were connected, but they soon learned nothing linked the two horrific events. Listen
Episode 30: Abduction in Tazlina: Tazlina, Alaska, an unincorporated village located 187 miles (301 km) northeast of Anchorage, is nestled along the banks of the Copper River. In 1991, 241 people lived in Tazlina. Eleven-year-old Mandy Lemaire, her parents, and brothers had just moved to Tazlina from Anchorage a year earlier. Mandy’s parents felt Tazlina would be a safer place to raise their children and a place where their kids could learn to hunt and fish and enjoy the Alaska outdoors. They soon learned that a source of evil lurked in the village. Listen
Episode 31: Murder on Shuyak Island: On November 12th, 2015, the mail-plane pilot, landed at Port William Wilderness Lodge on Shuyak Island near Kodiak. The lodge occupies an old cannery, and the pilot found this stop memorable because instead of both of the lodge’s caretakers greeting him, as usual, only one caretaker, 44-year-old Steven Ridenour, met the plane. The pilot wondered why the other caretaker, Steven McCaulley, 56, also did not arrive to help unload the freight. Since the tide was high, the plane could not pull up to the beach, and Ridenour had to ferry the mail to shore by boat. Without McCaulley there to assist, the job proved difficult and time-consuming. The pilot also found it curious that Ridenour simply stacked the freight above the high-tide mark, grabbed his gear, and jumped on the plane for a ride back to Kodiak. Ridenour then flew to Anchorage where he lived. Several days later, the Alaska State Troopers uncovered the horrible truth about what happened on Shuyak Island. Listen
Episode 32: The Unhappy Wife: We all know married couples who seem to thrive on discord. These are the people we avoid joining for dinner and the ones in whose presence we squirm as they argue, yell, and threaten. We wonder why they got married, and if they divorce, we’re certain no one else would want either one of them. Still, I’ve met couples who not only manage to survive their contentious relationships but enjoy sparring with their partners. Marriage is hard, but most of us try, at least for a while, to make a relationship work, and if it doesn’t work, we leave and go our separate ways. Jane and Scott Coville constantly fought, even before they moved to Alaska and married, but Jane did not divorce Scott; there was no need to sever ties with him because Scott conveniently disappeared. Did he grow disillusioned with Jane, marriage, and life in Alaska? Did Scott take off on his own for an adventure somewhere else, a place far away from his current responsibilities, or did something much more sinister happen to Scott Coville? Listen
Episode 33: Alaska Triangle: When doing a podcast about murder and mystery in Alaska, it is difficult to avoid the subject of “The Alaska Triangle.” First named in 1972, the Alaska Triangle stretches from Anchorage in southcentral Alaska to Juneau in the southeast panhandle to Utkiagaviq (formerly Barrow) on Alaska’s northern coast. Since 1988, more than 16,000 people have vanished from this area, and every year, approximately four people go missing per every 1000 Alaska residents. This rate is twice the national average. Listen
Episode 34: Who Murdered Joe? The endless supply of larger-than-life characters in Alaska makes the state fertile ground for reality television shows and movies based on true stories. If you made a list of the strong, fascinating individuals in the history of this vast state, though, Joe Vogler would rank near the top. Picture a sharply dressed man, wearing a fedora, a bolo tie, and a plaid flannel shirt while he stands in front of a group of rowdy people and proclaims his controversial opinions in a booming voice. Joe Vogler developed a large following of folks who agreed with his politics, but he also made many enemies. When he disappeared from his remote home, people wondered if an enemy had killed him, or if the murderer was someone who claimed to be his friend and colleague? Listen
Episode 35: The Mystery of the “A” Boats: On Valentine’s Day 1983, two new, beautiful sister ships, the Americus and the Altair sank in the Bering Sea in calm water while on their way to the king crab grounds near the Pribilof Islands. Fourteen men lost their lives in the worst disaster in the history of U.S. commercial fishing. A massive investigation ensued to determine what happened to the boats and what could be done to make commercial fishing safer. Listen
Episode 36: Who Murdered the Benolkens? Who brutally raped and murdered James and Anne Benolken in their Juneau apartment in 1982? Nearly four decades later, many questions remain unanswered. Listen
Episode 37: The Killer Who Hibernated in Alaska: Retirees Robert and Dagmar Linton eagerly embarked on a long-planned camping trip in the Pacific Northwest, and they promised their children they would be careful. The Lintons did not express concerns about their journey, but Dagmar made sure their wills and affairs were in order before they left home. Was she just cautious, or did she have a premonition something terrible would befall them? Her son and daughter would always wonder if their mother had concerns, and they would never know what exactly happened to their parents. Listen
Episode 38: The Birdman of Alcatraz: You might not associate The Birdman of Alcatraz with Alaska, but Robert Stroud, often called the Birdman, once lived in Alaska, and after murdering a man in a Juneau bar, he spent the rest of his life, 54 years. He was in solitary confinement for 42 of those years. Stroud is one of Alaska’s most famous criminals, and if you are like me, you will find his story is fascinating. Listen
Episode 39: What Happened to the Palmer Brothers: When a son disappears, his parents suffer a blow from which they will never recover, but how do parents cope when two of their sons vanish? Imagine if those two brothers disappeared a decade apart. Listen
Episode 40: Serial Killer John Joseph Fautenberry: Would you recognize a serial killer if you rubbed elbows with him in a bar or if he struck up a conversation with you on a hiking trail? Maybe something about the person would set off alarm bells, especially if you found yourself alone with him. A sociopath or a psychopath can often present a charming demeanor, though, so most of us would never notice the predator in our midst. We might not realize the friendly stranger is a brutal murderer until we read the news the next day. Listen
Episode 41: The Sinking of the SS Clara Nevada: Superstitions swirl around boats, and some captains believe bizarre myths. Renaming a vessel remains foremost among the maritime harbingers of bad luck, and if you dare change the name of your boat, you must follow a strict protocol to avoid certain doom. The Clara Nevada did not even complete her maiden voyage under her new name. Is this boat the case study to prove the truth of the old mariner’s superstition, or did her captain plot her demise? Listen
Episode 42: Murder on the Banks of the Yukon: When someone brutally murdered the postmistress of Ruby, Alaska, a small village on the Yukon River, the Alaska State Troopers believed they had a ‘locked-room” mystery on their hands. They suspected one of the villagers of killing Agnes Wright. After all, there are only two ways into and out of Ruby: either by boat on the Yukon River or by air travel on a small bush plane. Neither method of transportation is inconspicuous to or from a village where everyone knows everyone else, and a stranger’s presence warrants stares and whispers. Since the troopers heard no credible accounts of a stranger in town on the day of the murder, they began with the premise that one of the villagers committed the crime. But who in this small village hated Agnes Wright enough to beat her savagely and then shoot her? Listen
Episode 43: The Wreck of the SS Princess Sophia – The Unknown Titanic of the West Coast: he deadliest marine disaster on the west coast of North America occurred in Lynn Canal on October 24, 1918, but few people have ever heard of it. Approximately 345 people died when the SS Princess Sophia slid off Vanderbilt Reef and sank. Did the captain’s recklessness cause the disaster, and did his poor decision-making doom the passengers and crew of the Princess Sophia? Listen
Episode 44: Miranda Barbour — Serial Killer or Liar? In December 2013, after police arrested Miranda Barbour, 19, for the murder of Troy LaFerrara in Pennsylvania, Miranda told a news reporter she had murdered between 22 and 100 people. She said she killed a few in North Carolina, Texas, and California, but she claimed most of the murders occurred in her home state of Alaska. Her statement startled law enforcement officials across the country, but they soon began to question her declarations. Was her claim of serial murders real, a cry for attention, or was she attempting to lay the foundation for an insanity defense? After the brutal killing of LaFerrara, though, few investigators doubted Miranda could have killed before, and most believed if she hadn’t been stopped, she would have killed again. What should we think, then? Is Miranda Barbour a serial murderer, a pathological liar, or both? Listen
Episode 45: Finding the Murderer of Jessica Baggen: When a small Alaska town loses one of its children, the entire community grieves, and when a monster brutally rapes, murders, and discards that child, the residents cry out for answers and justice. In the case of Jessica Baggen, the folks in the community of Sitka, Alaska, would not have those answers for twenty-four years. Listen
Episode 46: The Brutal Killings at Cache Creek: Money often leads to greed and sometimes even to murder, so we should not be surprised to learn about a miner killing other miners for their gold, the rawest form of currency. This story sounds believable from our jaded twenty-first-century perspective. In 1939, though, to the miners in Cache Creek country, the residents of Talkeetna, and people in Anchorage, the murders at Cache Creek represented the worst type of betrayal of the code of trust and respect followed by the independent men and women who labored in the mud to eke out a living and extract a valuable mineral from the earth. When the FBI did not quickly apprehend the killer, miners began to lock their cabins and fear their neighbors. Listen
Episode 47: The Murder of Shelley Connolly: As soon as detectives saw her body, they knew someone had violently abused and murdered her. Forty-one years later, investigators believe they finally know who killed Shelley Connolly. Listen
Episode 48: Deadly Passion: What would you do for love? What if someone stands between you and your heart’s desire, and the person in the middle is your true love’s estranged spouse? What if the woman you love and her spouse try to rekindle the flames of their damaged marriage, and you must think of them together? Would you accept defeat and quietly walk away, or would you take a more proactive approach? Jim Wheeler decided the best path to his true love’s heart was to blow up her husband’s truck with her husband in it. Listen
Episode 49: Gone Without a Trace: Airplanes first disappeared in Alaska as soon as they glided over the mountains, glaciers, oceans, tundra, and forests here. The rugged ocean and landscape of Alaska offer an abundance of places for a plane to vanish. Over the years, many planes have gone missing in Alaska, but not all the outcomes were bad, especially in the early years of aviation in the territory. Often, days or even weeks after a plane disappeared in a remote region and the pilot was assumed dead, he would wander out of the brush and into a village. Listen
Episode 50: The Murder of Judy Burgin: When the cyclists noticed a swath of material peeking through a pile of leaves, they stopped to investigate. What they found, sent them scurrying back to the highway to flag down a truck and ask the occupants to call the Alaska State Troopers. Listen
Episode 51: The Kidnapping and Murder of Amy Sue Patrick: We can never know another person’s thoughts and motivations. Most killers have a reason to commit murder; whether for revenge, jealously, or money, they understand why they killed their victim. Kyung Yoon, though, said he did not know why he killed Amy Sue Patrick. He claimed he murdered her on the spur of the moment, but some evidence suggests Yoon premeditated the crime. Events in this case took a bizarre twist when the troopers arrested Yoon and hauled him to prison. Listen
Episode 52: The Bethel School Shooting: Before Santa Fe, before Marjory Stoneman Douglas, before Sandy Hook, and even before Columbine, there was Bethel Regional High School in Bethel, Alaska. On February 19, 1997, Evan Ramsey loaded a Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun, hid the gun in his pants, and rode the school bus to the Bethel Regional High School, where he attended classes. What happened next would tear apart the small town of Bethel, Alaska, and as with all the school shootings to follow, students and parents would be left asking, “Why?” Listen
Episode 53: The Murder of John Hartman and The Fairbanks Four: At 2:45 am on October 11th, 1997, three friends in Fairbanks were heading home from a bar when they discovered the badly beaten body of 15-year-old John Hartman. Someone had kicked the boy’s head so many times that he was unrecognizable. He died the following evening when his parents agreed to take him off life support. Listen
Episode 54: Mystery Swirls Around the Disappearance of Vladimir Kostenko: Friends and family describe Vladimir Petrovich Kostenko as a seeker, a man searching for the meaning of life and hoping to find his place and purpose in the universe. Alaska, with its raw, untamed wilderness, is a place popular for “seekers” trying to find themselves, calm their minds, and even attain spiritual enlightenment. Unfortunately, though, many of these dreamers have no idea how to survive in the harsh environment of the northern wilderness. Alaska is often breathtaking, beautiful, and peaceful, but it can also be a fierce monster waiting for you to make a fatal mistake. Chris McCandless either starved to death or ate something poisonous during his quest for enlightenment, and Timothy Treadwell felt he was “at one” with the bears until one killed him and ate him. The Alaska environment demands respect from those who travel there, and if you neglect to respect the wilderness, you will be lucky to survive. Was Vladimir Kostenko an ill-prepared “seeker,” or did something more sinister happen to him? Listen
Episode 55: How to Become a Widow: Someone entered Buck Hofhines’s Fairbanks home on a bitterly cold January night and shot him seven times. His young bride, Verna, discovered his body, and she appeared shocked and confused. She told the Alaska State Troopers that she didn’t know why anyone would want to murder her husband. Authorities immediately suspected her of the crime, but she had a convincing alibi. Verna Hofhines was on stage performing as an exotic dancer when someone brutally murdered her husband, Buck. Listen
Episode 56: Betrayal of Trust: The Murder of Sonya Ivanoff: Recent events have reminded us that we cannot always trust the police to protect us. In the U.S., though, bad policemen and women represent only a small minority of law enforcement. I feel I can turn to the police if I need help, and if I report a crime, I believe they will respond and investigate my claim. The police in Nome, Alaska, however, often did not take reports of sexual harassment seriously, especially claims made by Alaska Native women. The Nome Police Department had a serious problem, and it took the murder of a beautiful, 19-year-old woman to expose the ugly truth. Listen
Episode 57: Ed Krause: Alaska’s first Serial Killer: Many serial killers have called Alaska home, and if you apply the broadest definition to the term, then serial killers terrorized settlers here long before profilers coined the term “serial killer.” A near-total lack of law enforcement in Alaska in the early 1900s allowed human predators to prowl the territory and prey on settlers and gold miners. Imagine the nervous miners who had amassed a quantity of gold. How did they sleep? Terror must have gripped them during the long trek from their claim to the nearest town and bank where they could deposit their gold. Ed Krause was a vile predator who killed with no remorse and then took what he wanted. We will never know how many people Krause murdered or how much money, gold, fox furs, land, and other valuables he stole, but what we do know paints Krause as one of the darkest figures in Alaska’s history. Listen
Episode 58: Maximum Security Part 1: The Brutal Murder of Shirley Koonz: Alaska is dangerous; many things can kill you here. Vicious predators, extreme temperatures, treacherous terrain, raging rivers, violent storms, and the churning ocean describe a few challenges humans face in the 49th state. Wilderness dangers did not worry Shirley Koonz, though. She’d spent most of her adult life in the Alaska wilderness, and along with her husband, she’d raised her six kids on a one-hundred-and-sixty-acre homestead. Shirley knew how to survive in the Alaska wilderness, but when circumstances forced her to move to Fairbanks, Shirley lost her footing. She didn’t fear wild animals, but she was wary of humans; unfortunately, her instincts proved correct. Not long after moving into her double-wide trailer on the edge of Fairbanks, a monster entered her home and stabbed her 26 times. Listen
Episode 59: Maximum Security Part 2: Bryan Perotti: In 1994, Kristopher Marcy and his friend, Bryan Perotti, managed the unthinkable when they escaped from Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, Alaska. When Marcy and Perotti first escaped, the police warned the public to be on the lookout for the pair. They considered both inmates dangerous, but they believed Bryan Perotti was the most violent of the two. Since Kristopher Marcy was in prison for stabbing a grandmother 26 times and then raping her as she lay dying, I couldn’t imagine a more violent predator and was curious to learn the details of Bryan Perotti’s young life and the crime that sent him to prison for 99 years. Listen
Episode 60: Vanished in the Alaska Wilderness: As I’ve mentioned in other episodes, each year, an average of 2,250 people disappear in Alaska, twice the national average. According to the Alaska State Troopers, approximately 1,520 people currently are listed as missing in Alaska. The cases date back to the 1950s. Some of these people vanished on purpose, and others suffered unfortunate accidents. We know a few met with foul play, though. They were alive, well, and happy one moment, and then they suddenly disappeared without a trace.
The two stories I’m covering in this episode describe every parent’s worst nightmare, and in both cases, I can’t help but wonder why more wasn’t done at the time to search for these young women. Since both cases technically remain open, though, the public cannot access
the police files, and perhaps authorities have done a great deal over the years to search for Erin and Jonnie. Maybe with new technology, detectives will solve these cases. Listen
Erin Marie Gilbert
Episode 61: The Saga of Chris McCandless: On September 6, 1992, two young hikers from Anchorage arrived at the old Fairbanks city bus #142, a makeshift shelter located on the Stampede Trail, twenty-five miles west of Healy. They immediately noted a stench emanating from the bus. A red leg warmer swung from an alder branch near the vehicle’s rear door. A note taped to the door terrified the hikers. It read:
S.O.S. I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST? Listen
Episode 62: Searching for the Killer of Martha Hansen: An electrician found the badly beaten and defiled body of 48-year-old Martha Hansen behind the Elks Club on 3rd Avenue in downtown Anchorage. She was naked except for a white sock on her left foot. When police detectives arrived at the scene, they were determined to do everything they could to find the animal who had perpetrated this horrible crime. They put in hours of dogged perseverance and executed a forensic technique few investigators thought was possible. Listen
