Imagine a small town where, between 1968 and 1983, the clergy sexually abused eighty percent of the children — a village where today, the city government is forced to hire police officers with extensive criminal records, including domestic violence, because there is no state law enforcement in this remote area of Alaska. Imagine this same community…

What happened on a foggy September day in 1982 in the small fishing village of Craig, Alaska? Many believe they know who killed the crew and passengers of the Investor, but only the killer knows why the massacre occurred. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ NOW AVAILABLE! _________________…

By all accounts, Doctor Eric Garcia truly cared for Jordan Joplin, but Joplin considered his relationship with the doctor as a means to an end; or as the prosecutor put it, Garcia believed he was in a romantic relationship with Joplin, but Joplin considered it transactional. Garcia had money and objects of value, and Joplin wanted it all for himsel…

People move to the Alaska wilderness either because they enjoy solitude and crave a subsistence lifestyle or because they wish to escape society. People who fall into this second category are either misfits who don’t know how or don’t want to blend in with others, or they are criminals, seeking to escape arrest and hoping to disappear into the vast…

As a state, Alaska has never had the death penalty. It was abolished in 1957, two years before Alaska became the 49th state in the union. However, from 1869 until 1957, twelve male felons were hanged for murder, robbery, and other crimes. This is the story about the unequal application of the death penalty in Alaska and why capital punishment was a…

Anchorage, Alaska, is the small plane capital of the world, and flying in Alaska is a thrilling experience where you can view spectacular scenery and reach remote lakes, rivers, and stretches of wilderness that are inaccessible by road. For the commercial pilots who fly these small planes, though, the job can be stressful at times, and they must de…

On the evening of July 7th, 1979, a plane disappeared near Kodiak Island in fair weather and moderate seas. News agencies in Alaska reported little about the missing plane and its occupants. Although reports of the apparent fatal crash made more of a splash in Great Britain, official sources offered no comment about the loss of a man who had done s…

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 Tro…

This story has all the elements of a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean play, and it could easily inspire the plot of a movie or a mystery novel. Unfortunately, this is a true drama, and the outcome deprived children of their father and a wife of her new husband. We will never know how this event truly ended. The last few moments aboard the R66 helic…

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. Sources Brennan, Tom. Cold Crime. Chapter 8: “Alaska’s Billy the Kid.” 2005. Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press. Gordon, Mike. “The hired gun.” March 26, 2014. Turna…

Neighbors suspected Elmer Haab was up to no good, and when his wife, Bonnie, mysteriously disappeared, they feared Elmer had done something to her. Alaska State Troopers also found the disappearance of Bonnie Haab suspicious, but with no body, there was little they could do.Sources:Anderson, Dianne. “Haab leads troopers to pyre where he burned wife…

Plane crashes are far too common in Alaska, and many of these accidents are due, at least in part, to poor weather conditions. If commercial pilots refused to fly in marginal weather, though, they would not make money because the weather is often bad in Alaska. For those of us who live or work in remote areas, we must fly in small planes, and we ca…

The U.S. military defines a “Broken Arrow” as an “unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft, or loss of the weapon.” The first Broken Arrow event occurred in 1950 during a mission from Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska. Questions still surround this event and the myster…

After a string of murders of young women near Fairbanks in the late 1970s and early ’80s, the abductions and murders mysteriously stopped. Troopers didn’t believe the vicious killer had suddenly halted his murder spree, but they feared the predator had moved somewhere else. Unfortunately, at the time, they had no database to track the killer’s move…

Trailer for Murder and Mystery in the Last FrontierWelcome to Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. Listen to tales of true crime and mystery in Alaska.What evil lay in store for the residents of McCarthy, Alaska, when they gathered to meet their weekly mail plane?Did infamous serial killer Robert Hansen fly his victims into the wilderness and h…

A wealthy, powerful man, a beautiful widow, a scandalous affair, a murder, and a suicide: This true-life crime drama had it all, except for the answer to the question: Who killed Cecil Wells?SourcesBartlett, James T. The Alaskan Blonde. 2022. North Haven, CT. Territory Books.Johnny WarrenReamer, David. “In 1953, Cecil Wells was a rich and powerful …

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…

Alaska has spawned a long list of serial killers from the gold rush era in the early 1900s to the present day. Is Brian Steven Smith the latest member of this notorious fraternity?Sources:Boots, Michelle Theriault. “Defendant in hotel killing indicted on additional charges; FBI ‘actively’ assisting investigation – Court documents filed thisKathlee …

The brutal murders in 1987 of a mother and her two daughters terrified the residents of Anchorage. Who would commit such a barbaric act, and would he strike again? Sources:Barer, Burl. Murder in the Family. 2016. Denver: WildBlue Press.Brennan, Tom. Murder at 40 Below. Chapter 6: “The Newman family masasacre.” 2001. Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press.“Mu…

What would you do to survive? Most of us believe there are some things we would never do, even if they could save our lives. However, until we find ourselves in a life-and-death situation, we can never know how far we might go for self-preservation. The marooned survivors from the James Allen did not hesitate to do what they felt was necessary to p…

Robert Hansen is Alaska’s most notorious serial killer. Several television shows have portrayed Hansen’s life; numerous books have detailed his horrific deeds; and a 2013 movie, The Frozen Ground, starring John Cusack as Hansen and Nicholas Cage as an Alaska State Trooper, chronicles Hansen’s crimes and dramatizes the police investigation and appre…

Christian Klengenberg greatly impacted Inuit settlements in the Arctic from Nome to central Canada. Many of his descendants are community leaders and active in Canadian politics. However, not all stories about Christian Klengenberg are good. He returned from one fateful voyage with only five of his nine crew members on board, and according to the r…

In the early morning hours of Monday, April 26, 1993, someone brutally raped, stabbed and shot Sophie Sergie in a college dorm on the University of Alaska campus in Fairbanks. Several hours later, a janitor discovered Sophie's body stuffed in a bathtub in a second-floor bathroom in the dorm. No one saw or heard anything. Sophie's case soon went col…

What happened to Harold Enzler and Nancy Bellamy? They were alive and well one minute and gone without a trace the next. Did they pack their things and flee the state? Were they hiding from authorities? Or did someone murder Harold and Nancy and dispose of their bodies in a way so the troopers would never find them?_________________________________…

The scattered residents of the McCarthy area were not prepared for the horrors of mail day on February 29, 1983, when one of their neighbors attempted to murder them all.Beginning this month, I plan to release two episodes of Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier every month. One episode will be new, and I will bring you the other from the archiv…

DWorking as a crew person on a fishing boat on the high seas or as part of a Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter crew rank as two of the most challenging and dangerous jobs in the world. When the fishing vessel La Conte began to sink in eighty-mile-per-hour (128.7 km/h) winds, the terrified crew had to jump into sixty-foot (18.3 m) seas in the…

Linda Skeek had three beautiful children and an excellent job, but she did not have a good marriage. However, Linda’s relationship with her husband, Thomas, seemed somewhat improved on New Year’s Eve, 2015. They loaded their kids in their new Navigator SUV and drove to downtown Anchorage to see the fireworks. They watched the movie Minions on the N…

Andrew Dolchok had glaring psychological issues, and he was often violent. Still, judges repeatedly released him from jail until one night when Andrew Dolchok’s demons convinced him to murder his cab driver.Sources:1-22-1982. Dolchok v. State. Justia U.S. Law. https://law.justia.com/cases/alaska/supreme-court/1982/3920-0.htmlBrennan, Tom. 2005. The…

With the nickname “Blueberry Tommy,” Thomas Johnson sounds like a harmless and even friendly historical figure, but nothing could be further from the truth. Historians don’t know much about Johnson except that he was a serial killer.SourcesHunt, William R. 1987. Distant Justice. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman, OK.Heaton, John W. 2010. Outlaw …

Winona FletcherTom Faccio heard the knock at the kitchen door. He arose from his seat at the dinner table and peered out a window to see a plump teenager with a cute face looking back at him. He probably wondered what the young girl wanted and opened the door to see if she needed help. It was the worst and last mistake Tom Faccio ever made.SourcesB…

Cynthia HoffmanI don’t usually do an episode about a case until the case either works through the legal system or it seems unsolvable. I could not ignore this sickening crime, though. There is nothing worse than children killing children, except perhaps when a teenager murders her best friend for thepromise of money.SourcesBrehmer, Schilmiller, McI…

Keith RanierePerhaps you heard about the NXIVM (pronounced Nexium) scandal when the police tracked down and arrested the cult leader, Keith Raniere, in Mexico. Soon, tales of sex trafficking, branding, and child pornography painted Raniere as an evil man. Like me, you probably shook your head and wondered how anyone could get drawn into a cult. Fro…

As the 40-ft. waves crashed down upon him and threatened to wash him and his charge, Captain Singh, off the deck of the sinking ship, Petty Officer Aaron Bean knew the helicopter would not return to rescue them for several hours. Would the freighter remain afloat? Could he survive the relentless pounding by the freezing North Pacific waves? Would C…

In September 2000, Shelia Toomey, a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, wrote a front-page story about six unsolved homicides in Anchorage. The article displayed the photos of the six victims. All were women; five were Native Alaskan, and one was African American. Nothing connected the victims, and the police did not know if they were looking fo…

On a cold February night in 1921, Jack Sturgus, Anchorage's first police chief, patrolled downtown Anchorage. He strolled past local businessman Oscar Anderson at 9:00 P.M., and they exchanged pleasantries, but what happened over the next few minutes constitutes one of the biggest mysteries in Anchorage history. At 9:30 P.M., night watchman John Mc…

David GrunwaldAny murder represents a level of greed, lust, or stupidity abhorrent to most humans, but when a child murders another child, the depravity reaches a new low. It is a sign of a rip in our society's moral fabric when a teenager thinks murder is the best way to handle a petty fight with his friend. I do not like to read or write stories …

On July 18, 1967, a catastrophic snowstorm pummeled Alaska’s Mt. Denali, killing seven of the twelve young men in the Wilcox Expedition attempting to reach the summit. This is still the worst climbing disaster ever to occur in the United States. We will never know what happened at the top of Mt. Denali. Experts can only guess the fate of those seve…

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…

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…

Erin Marie GilbertAs 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 un…

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…

Alaska is a dangerous place; many things can kill you here. Vicious predators, extreme temperatures, treacherous terrain, raging rivers, violent storms, and the churning ocean describe a few of the challenges facing humans in the 49th state. Wilderness dangers did not worry Shirley Koonz, though. She'd spent most of her adult life in the Alaska wil…

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. …

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, ofte…

Alaska is big; the state spans an area as wide as the distance from California to Florida, and much of the terrain is wild and inhospitable. Alaska has 39 mountain ranges, 12,000 rivers, 100,000 glaciers, and 3 million lakes. Much of the state is heavily forested, while boggy tundra covers other areas. In some regions, mudflats along the ocean act …

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…

Alaska Hatcher PassFriends 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. Unf…

“You’re trying to fill my brain with things I didn’t do.”Rabinowitz Courthouse, FairbanksAt 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 e…

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 happe…

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 Yoo…