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. But detectives had gotten video of the homicide days prior to finding the victims body, police said. 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. 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. Anchorage Police investigate the scene where human remains we found at mile 108 of the Seward Highway near Rainbow on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. 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. In at least two cases, a person believed to be breaking into a home was killed in what prosecutors determinedto be self-defense, and no charges were filed.The deaths ofLoren Douglas, 30, andAllen Raymond, 19, are still considered homicides by APD. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen). I don't believe it.". Little is known about Smith, the man charged. According to police, the arrest came after someone reported finding a digital storage device containing video of the killing. I'll stand behind him, beside him, while he's going through this," Bissland added. [sic] A manwith some sort of English accent can be heard in the video as well. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! (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 . Authorities say Schilmiller, who has been arrested in New Salisbury, Indiana, and will be transferred to Alaska next month, began an online relationship with 18-year-old Denali Brehmer of Anchorage, posing as Tyler. Brehmer then enlisted the help of four friends, including 19-year-old Caleb Leyland, 16-year-old Kayden McIntosh and two other unnamed juveniles, to plan and carry out the murder at Schilmillers direction, according to the documents. Shannon Duke. An economic thing happening? 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. All but one of the victims in those cases were female. Around 2010, he left Alaska and spent time in Las Vegas before moving to Virginia, where his parents now live. 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. A corrections officer told the court Doubek was on suicide protocols and unable to participate. Legal Statement. According to a press release from the Alaska Department of Law, Charlie was sentenced to 75 years . 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. The memory card found along road shows an Anchorage man assaulting and killing woman. APDsays when Moren left the Gaslight Lounge later that night,he was followedby Roy Schauer, 46. Legal Statement. James Dale Ritchie was a senior at East High School in 1994. Police point at recent hiring of new officers as an effort to make the city safer. The Alaska teens are being represented by the public defenders office, which has a policy of not commenting on cases. Police said the body was found near milepost 108 of Seward Highway on Oct. 2. During the initial 911 call, Doubek reportedly had slurred, garbled speech and admitted to shooting his wife, according to the affidavit. When a composite sketch of the man suspected in the death of TreyveonThompson was released, more than 190 people called in tips, McKinnon said. Witness memories fade, Skidmore said. Upon examining the card, police said it"contained several videos which appeared to show the assault and subsequent homicide of an adult female" and an investigation was opened. (Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News via AP), Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Legal Statement. The SD card, reportedly discovered lying in the street in an Anchorage neighborhood, was labeled homicide at midtown Marriott and contained graphic, time-stamped images and video recordings of a man beating and choking a naked woman, according to charging documents. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Police have not yet pointed to any known motive in the cases where Ritchie is identified as a suspect. Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll told reporters Abouchuk's family reported her missing in February, but he said she had last been seen by them in July 2018. She deserves just as much as a search for her people as any other victim, as any other survivor. 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. Smith is charged with first-degree murder. The SD card was labeled Homicide at midtown Marriott, according to the affidavit. It was first broadcast on May 9th, 2021. With the SD card, one of the first questions that detectives had to answer was, Was this staged, or did this really happen? Making the decision to leave, to start the processes for divorce or anything like that, that definitely would escalate the situation and increase lethality for that victim, Pearson said. Eklutna Annie is still unidentified, despite her face being reconstructed in both 3-D and 2-D.[4][23] Several missing women are believed to have also been murdered by Hansen. On Sept. 30, someone called Anchorage police claiming to have found an SD card containing video of a homicide. All rights reserved. "[13], According to Hansen, he then drove in the direction of Eklutna Lake, with his vehicle eventually becoming stuck on a desolate road as he veered in the direction of a "muddy swamp". She was aged between 16 and 25 at the time of her death, and her body was discovered several months after her murder. All rights reserved. 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. 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. 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. After Mr. Mackay and the pilot's sister, Muriel . 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. Our salaries up here used to be the draw, an attorney for the agency said. In court Wednesday, Smith appeared in handcuffs, wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit. In response, he chased after her, grabbed her by the hair and tripped her to the ground. Marcy keeps running over the questions in her mind: Why is this happening in Anchorage? All rights reserved. His wife is not implicated in the slaying. 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. Police have only definitively named him as the gunman in one killing, that of Treyveon Thompson on July 29. 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. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Hoffman, 19, died from a gunshot wound to the. Don't kill me!" But APD isnot ready to close the cases. 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. After the death, the ship was diverted to the city of Juneau, in Alaska, and passengers were forced by investigators to remain on board for more than eight hours. 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. 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. Months before the alleged hit . 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. After troopers arrived, Doubek was given first aid and taken to a hospital. Doubek did not attend his scheduled arraignment Thursday. 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. Fox News Flash top headlines for Oct. 17 are here. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, "We haven't found evidence that anyone other than Ritchie is involved.". The group met to decide how they would divvy up the money. Of the34 homicides in 2016, all but three are considered solved, with police identifying at least a main suspect, according to Sgt. Anchorage police think the human remains belong to the woman seen on the memory card, and the medical examiner is working to confirm the connection and the cause of death. Moren, a patron at the bar, was shot and killed in the alley as the bar was closing early in the morning on Dec. 24. 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. data the agency has presented to the Legislature. Of the 34 victims, 14 were under the age of 25. The Alaska Public Defender Agencys longtime director, Quinlan Steiner, announced his resignation in April. Days later, on Oct. 2, police officers found human remains on the side of a highway. In September, the death of a man in the middle of a busy intersectionshut down anelementary school and a middle schoolwhile police investigated the killing. According to Hansen, he had first attempted to placate Eklutna Annie as he restrained her, falsely claiming he did not intend to harm her, although she responded: "You are! Officials said there was no indication Hoffman was sexually assaulted. Last year, Steiner, who was then the agencys director, warned that his attorneys were at their limit and would have to start refusing to handle new cases without a $1 million boost to their $26 million budget. Even after that request was granted, Steiner said at a legislative budget hearing in March that he needed at least nine more lawyers, on top of an existing staff of roughly 75 criminal attorneys, to fulfill the agencys constitutional obligations. Police were able to identify Smith, a native of South Africa, from the video after recognizing him from a separate, unspecified investigation, in part because of his accent. ANCHORAGE, Alaska A woman pleaded guilty to murder after an Indiana man allegedly offered her $9 million to "rape and murder someone in Alaska." According to the Alaska Department of Law, 22-year-old Denali Brehmer admitting to killing 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman on June 29, 2019, near Thunderbird Falls in Chugiak, Alaska. [3][4], Eklutna Annie was murdered by serial killer Robert Hansen, most likely in 1979. 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. 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. 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. Man arrested for murder after SD card with video of crime found on street. Early on Christmas Eve, James "Lucas" Moren became Anchorage homicide victimNo. Many questions remain unanswered Wednesday, including the identity of the woman. 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. On the whole they are to be commended for all they do in the face of serious institutional limits, he wrote. Police solved an Alaskan murder with a memory card found along road. 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. 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. The woman attempted to fight back, the affidavit said. Time stamps on the images at the hotel showed they were taken in the early hours of Sept. 4, the affidavit said. 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. Detectives saythey have a "good understanding" of what happened and who was involved in each of those cases. The SD card also contained images of the womans body being removed from a hotel room and transported in a black truck, according to charging documents. Officials allege they destroyed some of Hoffmans clothing, purse and cellphone, and Brehmer texted Hoffmans family to let them know they dropped her off at Polar Bear Park in Anchorage. 32. Troopers arrived hours later and interviewed Walters, who admitted to beating Queenie, his 22-year-old girlfriend, with his fists and a broom handle. He worked in construction and kitchens, said Marcy, a paralegal. In some villages, city and tribal leaders say they have no choice but to hire convicted criminals as cops. The FBI is investigating the death because it occurred in US waters. MacDonald serves as the presiding judge for the Fairbanks-based Fourth Judicial District. CALIFORNIA MAN KIDNAPPED GIRL, 17, WHO WORKED WITH PALS TO NAB HIM IN THEIR OWN UNOFFICIAL OPERATION: COPS, There are 39 images and 12 videos on the card, according to a charging document filed by the Alaska Department of Law. He isnow charged with murder. 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. Alaska emergency officials issued an AMBER Alert for 8-month-old boy Ahmiri Chaney on Feb. 17, 2023. . Denali Brehmer, 22, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in the June 2019 death of Cynthia Hoffman, the Alaska Department of Law said. Alaska copscharged an Anchorage man with murderTuesday after shocking videos found on a mysterious memory card allegedly capturedthe suspectassaulting and killing a woman whose remains were recently discoverednear a highway. "What we're seeing is that when we ask the community for assistance, they really respond to us," he said. 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 . The victim was also wearing several pieces of jewelry, including an apparently handmade metal bracelet containing three turquoise stones,[2][8] a copper necklace containing shell beads, a pendant heart, a Timex metal wristwatch consisting of circular links and with a brown watch face, a ring carved from shell jewelry, and gold-plated, twisted metal hoop earrings.
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