It's unclear who the woman is, but authorities are working to identify her and determine how she died. Witness memories fade, Skidmore said. 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. Smith came to Alaska from South Africa about five years ago and became a naturalized U.S. citizen last month, according to the bail memo. A corrections officer told the court Doubek was on suicide protocols and unable to participate. The race is on: What to know about the 2023 Iditarod, No injuries in downtown Anchorage commercial building collapse. 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. [10], As Eklutna Annie struggled against his efforts to overpower her, she had screamed, "Don't kill me! 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. Witnesses say she was travelling with her children. 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. [Here are the most-read Alaska Dispatch News stories of 2016]. The millionaire's only demand for the payout was either . Moody, the Alaska Public Defender Agency supervisor, said there are currently 11 vacant attorney positions out of 98 statewide. (In addition to the 75 criminal attorneys, about 25 more work on appeals and childrens cases.) 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. 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. In June, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr declared a public safety emergency in the state, announcing $10.5 million in funding for village police, equipment and public safety buildings. 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. 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. Here, "it's more groups of people who know each other and engage in high-risk behavior together," he said. The record in this case should reflect that, as a result of the policy and budget choices made by the legislative and executive branches the people of Alaska must tolerate long delays in the prosecution of the type of crimes charged in this case crimes against women, crimes fueled by substance abuse, crimes against law enforcement officers, crimes against rural Alaskans, the judge wrote. All rights reserved. James Dale Ritchie was a senior at East High School in 1994. [4][7][n 1], Eklutna Annie's body was markedly decomposed, indicating her death had occurred months prior. He worked in construction and kitchens, said Marcy, a paralegal. 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. 28, 2020 at 10:10 AM PDT. The woman attempted to fight back, the affidavit said. According to police, the arrest came after someone reported finding a digital storage device containing video of the killing. 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. Contact her at [email protected]. According to Hansen, he persuaded Eklutna Annie to help him winch his pickup free from the mud, although when he began to drive his vehicle free, Eklutna Annie attempted to run. 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. The FBI is investigating the death because it occurred in US waters. For many, it was the year the city's violence hit home,even if they didn't personally know any of the victims. The Alaska teens are being represented by the public defenders office, which has a policy of not commenting on cases. Brian . 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. 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. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Jorge Rea-Villa, a handsome tattoo artist who went to a Fourth of July barbecue and ended up dead. 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. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. LOUISIANA MAN ARRESTED IN 1989 MURDER CASE: POLICE. 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 Midtown hotel room. APD provided a recent photograph of Ritchie. A memorial for James Lucas Moren in an alley behind the Gaslight Bar on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016. Human remains found along Seward Highway near Rainbow trailhead. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Schauer shot Moren several times, police say, though they have not said why. Of the 34 victims, 14 were under the age of 25. When they were able to determine that this was an actual crime, then the investigation started to quickly speed up.. Just two years ago, in 2014, Anchorage ended the year with 13 homicides on the books the lowest in two decades. On Sept. 30, police received a report from someone saying they had found an SD card containing several videos of an assault and murder. Smith is charged with first-degree murder. Zaz Hollander is a veteran journalist based in the Mat-Su and is currently an ADN local news editor and reporter. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. We still dont know who she is and we dont know much about her," said Thim. According to court documents and evidence presented . Detectives knew almost immediately that something was wrong, that someones loved one was killed when they found her remains, he said. Could a bigger prize and more races boost interest? 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. IE 11 is not supported. A handwritten note laid on a nearby bench with the words Shes havin an affair proof is in the phone. ", "Alaska State Troopers: Unidentified Body", "Serial Killer Robert Hansen Dies in Anchorage", "Serial Killer's Victim Exhumed In Alaska: Who Is 'Horseshoe Harriet'? Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. She deserves just as much as a search for her people as any other victim, as any other survivor. A millionaire widower and her teenaged daughter take a fivestar cruise together. They were all going to spend Christmas together the next day. An economic thing happening? While the agencys inflation-adjusted spending has doubled in the past 30 years, its felony caseload has tripled, it says. Gardner slept upstairs. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Police point at recent hiring of new officers as an effort to make the city safer. Igou pleaded guilty on November 5, 2020 to the September 10, 2017 murder of Aurora Paint Company co-owner Gregory Gill. A man charged with murder is accused of fatally stabbing his 23-year-old daughter Friday in Anchorage's Fairview neighborhood. The Associated Press contributed to this report. 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. State prosecutors say Darin Lee Jones, 54, and Shawn Michael Phillips, 52, killed Patricia Phelps, 48, in Anchorage's Spenard neighborhood in 2017. ", "DNA Match IDs Alaska Serial Killer's Victim After 37 Years", https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14666142/?ref_=ttep_ep3, https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2020/09/22/do-you-know-this-woman/, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_Eklutna_Annie&oldid=1140185336, Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery, Anchorage, Alaska. 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. The victim has. All rights reserved. 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. Ritchie was killed during a shootout with police officers in downtown Anchorage on November 12, 2016. APD officer Arn Salao was wounded and the suspect, James Dale Ritchie, was killed in the early-morning shootout. According to online court records, no new trial date has been set in the killing of Gertrude Queenie. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! 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 case remains open, and numerous efforts have been made to determine the identity of the decedent, including several forensic facial reconstructions of how she may have appeared in life. According to police, the arrest came. 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. At one June hearing, shortly before she resigned, the public defender noted she was working a double case load. 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.