Episodes

The Greatest High-Seas Rescue in Coast Guard History Imagine alarm bells startling you from a peaceful sleep aboard a luxury cruise ship at 1:00 a.m. You didn’t take the “abandon ship” drill seriously on your first afternoon on the boat, and now, you struggle to remember what to do in an emergency. You find your life jacket and open the door to your cabin. The passageway smells smoky, and you hear an explosion in the bowels of the large ship. You realize the boat is not moving, and you can’t he...

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. Matricide, the killing of one’s mother, is uncommon, and matricide by a girl under the age of 18 is extremely rare. Of the few cases in recent history where a girl under the age of 18 killed her mother, the offender...

What was his name? How old was he? Where did he come from? What happened to him? These are a few of the questions concerning the man known as William Dempsey. Eyewitnesses saw him murder Deputy U.S. Marshal Isaac Evans, and a jury convicted him of killing Marie Lavor, but did he murder others? Was he a young man named William Dempsey, as he claimed, or did he steal the real William Dempsey’s identity? One hundred years later, these questions continue to elude historians. Sources Herron, Charles...

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 h...

When the Kotzebue police entered a bedroom in a house on the mayor’s property on May 23, 2018, they found the lifeless body of twenty-five-year-old Jennifer Kirk curled at the foot of the bed. A rifle lay across her feet. She had strangulation marks on her neck and a bullet wound under her chin. Even before receiving the autopsy report, the Kotzebue police quickly ruled Kirk’s death a suicide. Two years later, the police were called to an adjacent house on the same property to examine the body o...

In one of my last episodes, I profiled Israel Keyes, a serial killer who moved to Anchorage in 2007. Many serial-killer experts consider Keyes to be one of the most intelligent, organized serial killers of all time. He randomly chose victims who lived thousands of miles from his home, and he stashed murder kits around the country, planning to access them at some future date. It is easy to understand why Israel Keyes wasn’t captured sooner than he was. He methodically planned his crimes and alway...

Harvey Carignan was a vicious serial rapist and killer. He murdered his first victim in Alaska, and she should have been his last because the jury condemned him to death by hanging for the crime. Unfortunately, the sentence was overturned when it became clear a police officer had obtained Carignan’s confession illegally. Instead of death, Harvey Carignan served eight years at Alcatraz and then headed out into the world to prey on more women. Sources Azarian, Nash. “Harvey Carignan: Harv the Ha...

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I’ll give it blow by blow if you want. I have lots more blow-by-blow 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 the...

When crew members decide to abandon a floundering ship in the North Pacific in the winter in twenty-foot seas, they know they are unlikely to survive, even when they do everything right. If the captain can send out a May Day, everyone dons a pristine survival suit and seals it around their face, and they deploy and enter a life raft, they still face a long list of things that could and often do go wrong. Proper gear, training, and the captain’s strong, calm, logical voice significantly increase ...

People imagine snow, ice, and bitter cold when they think of Alaska in January, but Alaska is a big place. I live on Kodiak Island in the southern part of the state, and the winter temperature here averages around 35⁰F (1.7⁰C). That may seem cold if you are from California, South America, or Australia, but is not a harsh winter temperature for most of the United States. The following story, though, gives you a feel for Alaska at its coldest. This brutal crime occurred north of the Arctic Circle ...

Klutuk is Alaska’s version of the boogeyman – a terrifying character you tell stories about around the campfire. He is a man shrouded in mystery and myth. What was his actual name? Was he tall or short? How many men did he kill? Did he possess mystical powers? How did he die? One hundred years after he terrorized western Alaska, it is impossible to separate truth from fiction. Sources Dihle, Bjorn. “Klutuk, the mad trapper of Bristol Bay.” June 6, 2020. Outdoorlife.com. Heaton, John. “Klutuk:...

Most parents can imagine no nightmare worse than the disappearance of a child, but how can a parent possibly cope when both of their children vanish, swallowed by the Alaska wilderness? Sometime during the late-night hours of Sept. 5 or the early morning hours of Sept. 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 St...

If you want to murder someone, consider inviting them on a cruise. With little law enforcement oversight and a fear of negative publicity, cruise ship officials often prefer to look the other way and ignore unpleasantness on one of their vessels. Cruise ship officers have even been accused of covering up murder scenes or pretending missing passengers never existed. Cruise ships play an essential role in the tourism industry in Alaska. Cruise ships boost the economy of a handful of port towns in...

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 po...

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 where the violent murder of a young woman remains unsolved six years after her body was found bruised and bloody on a lonely beach. Now, put this vil...

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! __________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Jo...

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 himself. Sources “Anchorage jury finds Jordan Joplin guilty of murder in Dr. Eric Garcia case.” June 2, 2023. Ketchikan Daily News. Jordan Joplin Cole, S...

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 wilderness. Many of my episodes have dealt with individuals who ran to Alaska from a life of crime elsewhere. They might have hoped to turn their liv...

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 abolished in the state. Sources: Heaton, John W. Outlaw Tales of Alaska. “Fred Hardy.”2015. Guilford, CT. Rowman & Littlefield. Green, Melissa S. “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 depend on their skills and common sense. Commercial pilots in Alaska have a tough job, but near the bottom of a pilot’s list of concerns is the fear he ...

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 so much to protect Britain against the USSR during the Cold War. Even now, the disappearance of Ian Mackintosh is cloaked in secrecy, and many wonder i...

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. Sources Chomicz, Dorothy. “Kangas found ...

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 helicopter and the pilot’s mindset will remain a mystery. Did Andy Teuber’s helicopter crash into the Gulf of Alaska because he purposely flew it into the...

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. Turnagain Currents. Hale, Leland. “The lonesome death of Beth van Zanten: The killer is killed.” October 17, 2018. Butcher Baker. Hale, Leland. “Lones...