REAL PEOPLE - REAL STORIES

Pictured above is Bonnie Craig, the daughter of Karen Foster. Karen is the driving force behind this website. Karen's daughter Bonnie Craig was an 18 year-old college student when she was abducted, brutally raped and murdered on September 28, 1994 in Anchorage, Alaska. In January 2007 Alaska State Troopers finally contacted Karen, thirteen years after her daughter’s murder, to share that a DNA match finally provided a clue to the killer.

A man, who had entered the prison system in New Hampshire in February 2003 for a series of armed robbery offenses, matched the DNA profile found on Bonnie. His DNA could have been taken in July 2003, but it wasn't entered into the national DNA Database, CODIS, until November 2006. At that time, upon a routine CODIS search by the Alaska State Crime Lab, the DNA match appeared. The murderer was originally from New Hampshire, but had been a soldier stationed in Alaska at Fort Richardson in the early 1990s. He stayed in the area for a couple of years after he left the military, but was arrested multiple times for petty theft. The pre-trial motions for the rape and murder of Bonnie Craig finally began November 14th, 2007. The trial date was rescheduled six times before finally commencing May 10th, 2011. At that time, there had been 33 pre-trial hearings. June 15th, 2011, the trial finally came to conclusion. "Guilty" on all four counts.  After waiting nearly 17 years, the family and friends of Bonnie Craig had resolution and justice in the loss of this promising 18-year-old young woman: Kenneth Dion was found guilty of one count 1st degree murder, two counts of 2nd degree murder and one count 1st degree sexual assault. 
(ADN News Story)

Rewind three years ago: after waiting for fourteen years to know that the man who killed her daughter could not harm another, Karen Foster leapt into action. Within 12 days of the indictment in her daughter's case Karen had successfully mobilized the public and the legislature to pass a law requiring that DNA will be collected for all felony arrests. Karen is dedicated to ensuring that every state require the same and that the DNA backlogs be processed so that other ‘unsolved’ crimes can be closed similarly. The ultimate goal is to have the processing of DNA conducted within 24 hours. It can be done! Karen has worked as a Reserve Police Officer and now works closely with the Alaska legislature, the State Crime Lab and the Law Enforcement community to help balance the scales of justice and stop the re-victimization of victims, family, friends and communities.  Karen then left Alaska to work in Boca Raton, FL to push DNA on Arrest legislation in the remaining 27 states. 

More information about the Bonnie Craig case can be found at:

KTVA, KTUU, ADN


Four Unsolved Alaskan Murders

UNRESOLVED MURDERS, OTHER VIOLENT CRIME CASES, ALASKA
The Alaska Department of Public Safety currently has 72 open, unsolved murder cases that fall under DPS jurisdiction, which includes many of the communities and cities within Alaska. These open unsolved cased date back to 1960. However, Anchorage Police Department and other Alaska law enforcement departments may have additional unsolved murder cased not included in the DPS jurisdictional count.

We are unable to provide the number of unsolved rape case statistics for the State of Alaska at this time, but we know that it will be a substantial number.

Caseloads are increasing. There are 6,300 new felonies a year, representing a statewide increase of up 30%. In Anchorage, felonies have increased 75%.

 

Plans are in the works to add 33 new police officers in Anchorage. While this will increase the numbers of arrests, they will not be able to have their evidence processed by the existing crime lab, due to it's limited size and capabilities. Adding more officers when their lab can't process all crime scene evidence makes no sense.

 

The Superior Court caseload increased 31%.  There are 44 courts in Alaska for which our crime lab processes evidence. Crime lab staff travel to communties throughout Alaska to testify as expert witnesses regarding crime scene evidence.

Backlog, DNA, CODIS
Current Alaska State Crime Lab

There are approximately 6,500 samples awaiting analysis. This is a rough estimate that includes 5,000 in CODna and 1,500 awaiting entry into JT. Including cases that are received after 1/30/09, the current Alaska State Crime Lab is on track to be caught up around July 1, 2009. That is a backlog of six months!

Below is a break-down how many cases were/are aided in 2008/2009 from the collection of and processing of DNA:

 

2008

3,006 unique profiles entered into SDIS

            54 from casework

            258 arrestees

            2,694 convicted offenders

 

2,581 profiles to NDIS

            48 from casework

            258 arrestees

            2,253 convicted offenders

 

26 investigations aided

           

 

2009

1,345 unique profiles entered into SDIS

            0 from casework

            786 arrestees

            559 convicted offenders

 

1,344 profiles to NDIS

            0 casework

            786 arrestees

            558 convicted offenders

 

1 investigation aided

 

Currently, the lab has 10-15 possible matches to follow up on. They are not yet counted in investigations aided.

 

In the Bonnie Craig case, 105 people were ruled out by DNA. These were people that the Alaska State Troopers were investigating as possible suspects. That only counts for ONE investigation aided.  The Alaska State Crime Lab is now keeping track of the number of suspects that were ruled out by DNA. This is an incredible savings to investigators in time and money. They can recognize they need to move onto other possibilities and suspects.



UNRESOLVED MURDER CASES, LOWER 48 (in which DNA may help close the case!)



Four-year old Jessica Martinez was murdered 19 years ago. Her unsolved case is now pending resolution, thanks to recent DNA technology: http://www.bakersfield.com/hourly_news/story/486830
 

Daily another crime is solved by DNA technology.


If you have a link that you think would be of interest, please send it via our "contact us" page.

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