WEBVTT - S1: E26– Someone Is Getting Away with Murder, Part 1 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:04.440 When a teenage girl was found dead in a creek. 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.600 The police said it was an accident, but was it. 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.360 She had all these head injuries. I see her knuckles, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:17.560 They're all battered, and I realized, no, these are defensive wounds. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.880 She's fought for her life. You've got to look into 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:23.640 this as if it's murder. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.480 Determined to find her daughter's killer, a mother went in 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:28.560 search of justice. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.200 There is someone out there and they're getting away with murder. 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.559 Her investigation led her to consider the unthinkable. Was her 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.920 daughter's death a result of something she did? 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.240 It just made me so sick to think it could 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.440 have been solved in wags instead. It was seventeen year saga. 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.080 Today, we're in Angora, j Alaska, for the first episode 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.120 of Someone Is Getting Away with Murder. I'm Slow Glass 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.640 and this is American Hama Side. Just to note that 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.800 this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.240 Relocating from southern California to Anchorage was a big deal 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:14.120 for Karen Foster and her family. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.480 My children had never been to an area like Angorage before, 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.479 and I was concerned that they would not enjoy the winters, 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:30.640 the cold, but they totally adapted immediately. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.360 Ditching their shorts for snowsuits. Went easier than expected for 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:35.679 Karen and her children. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.400 You know, Anchorage was incredible and there's so much to see, 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.440 and the kids were learning so much, you know, going 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:48.000 to glaciers, ski hills, you've got parks, you've got hiking trails, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.920 there's just so much adventure there. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.600 Arguably Karen's most active child was her daughter, Bonnie, who, 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.280 by most accounts, was not your typical teenager. She wrote poetry, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.560 played the violin, and planned to become a psychologist. 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.839 She started a group of students against drunk drivers when 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.360 she lost a really good friend of hers. So she 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:19.600 was very kind, caring, just a sweetheart day everybody. 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.360 Bonnie had brown hair, a face full of freckles, and 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.200 stood just five feet tall, not exactly someone you'd expect 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.120 to see on a wrestling mat. 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.520 She was into wrestling, which is something I never really 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:35.400 wanted her to do. 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.960 At her high school, Bonnie even managed to break the 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:39.760 glass ceiling. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.040 She was the first female wrestler in the state of Alaska. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.520 Kristin McCart was friends with Bonnie. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.000 She was always trying to like do things that other 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.160 people would perceive they shouldn't do. It was her not 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.600 to be friends with Bonnie. She was probably one of 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.000 the kindest people I've ever met. It was almost impossible 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:01.200 for somebody not to like her. 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.120 Bonnie graduated from high school in nineteen ninety four and 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.680 planned to follow her boyfriend to college in California, but 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.239 her plan didn't work out. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:12.880 Everybody's talking about like, what we're you gonna do next year, 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:18.440 and Bonnie seemed like sad a little bit about graduating, 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.880 and she wasn't going to be going out of state. 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.160 So Bonnie's mom wanted her to stay home for her 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:25.120 freshman year. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.120 But ultimately that was her plan, was to go out 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:29.080 of stay with him. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.840 In nineteen ninety four, Kristen and Bonnie started classes at 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.600 the University of Alaska in Anchorage. 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.480 I mean, we were both working pretty much full time 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.160 to help pay for college because neither of us wanted 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:41.840 a lot of debt. 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.760 On Wednesday, September twenty eighth, nineteen ninety four, Bonnie left 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.760 her home before sunrise to catch her bus to campus. 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.680 But nobody remembered seeing her at school that day. 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.400 Bonnie never showed up for her seven am English class 0:03:57.520 --> 0:03:59.520 or any of her classes that day. 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.520 Was really weird that she didn't come to school because 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:04.960 she didn't she I don't remember ever missing a day 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.840 of school in high school, Like even when she was sick, 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:09.560 she would still show up. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.800 That evening, Kristen's boyfriend learned why Bonnie didn't make it 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:14.640 to class. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.320 He said, they found Bonnie's body, and I was like, what, 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:24.040 like total shock. He just says, yeah, they found her 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.400 body at McHugh Creek. They don't know what happened, and 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.680 like I just started crying. 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.080 McHugh Creek runs through a state park some ten miles 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.400 from both the University of Alaska campus and Bonnie's home 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:40.360 in Anchorage. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.640 We all wondered, like how she got there. She didn't 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:44.520 even drive a car. 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.280 Bonnie didn't have a driver's license and preferred taking public transportation. 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.160 But note buses went to that forest preserve. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.280 And that was such a long walk. You would have 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.080 to walk down the highway quite a ways. 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.440 All of that added to the mystery. 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.200 It would have meant that she chose to get in 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:09.440 a car with someone, which she wouldn't have done. So 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.240 in my mind and in the mind of most of 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:18.240 our friends, we knew something had happened to cause her 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:19.560 to end. 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:20.400 Up in Mechu Creek. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.600 Bonnie's mother, Karen, was vacationing in Florida when an Alaska 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.599 State trooper called her with the news. 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.320 A trooper gets on the line and he says, that 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:40.279 my daughter Bonnie is dead. She fell in a hiking accident. 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.280 The trooper explained that Bonnie slipped off the ledge at 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.919 a state park in Anchorage, hit her head on some 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.320 jagged rocks, and plunged more than thirty feet into a creek. 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.280 He told her that another hiker spotted her body that 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.600 afternoon and called the police. 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:02.240 I mean total denial. And I asked them who was 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.800 with her? He says there was no one with her. 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.400 I said she didn't drive, how would she have gotten 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:14.599 out there? And he has no answer for me. I 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.960 said what time was she found? And he said two 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.240 o'clock in the afternoon. I said, no, she should have 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.360 been at the university. She had papers that were due, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:27.279 and she had a paper that she was going to 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.520 be handing in that day at her English class. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.880 If Bonnie had gone hiking that afternoon, that meant she 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.520 would have had to skip school. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.760 There's no way that Bonnie would have missed a class 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.800 she was very particular about going to school and going 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:45.680 to her classes. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.279 Bonnie was found in a creek several miles from campus 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.440 with a dozen cuts to her head, including a deep 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.360 gash at the base of her skull. She also had 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:01.240 bruises on her knuckles, and strangely, Bonnie's back pack, keys, 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.240 and even the can of mace attached to her keychain 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:06.560 were missing. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.320 Nothing made sense, so I immediately told him, no, no, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.960 it's got to be murder. You've got to look into 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:16.880 this as if it's murder. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.880 Karen spent the long flight home trying to make sense 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:22.640 of what the troopers told her. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.920 So from Florida back to Alaska, you're at least twelve 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:35.920 hours flying time, you can't sleep, and you're just you're shaking. 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.520 Who would hurt Bonnie? How could this be? 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.080 Bonnie was a creature of habit and had routine every 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.280 morning when she went to school, So. 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.720 That morning, body would have gotten up, probably her own 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.400 five five point thirty, walked down the block and then 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.600 out to a bus stop a mile from the house. 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.080 She would have been at the university from a seven 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.960 am class until three in the afternoon. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.560 Karen wondered if someone had been watching Bonnie and knew 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.840 her usual route, and that's one of thought sent chills 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:18.880 down her spine. 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.040 So I was a reserve police officer with anguage Police Department, 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:28.160 and we would go out and buy drugs from certain people. 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.000 We also had informants that would tell us who the 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.840 people were and who was selling drugs and stuff like that. 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:41.120 And just before Bonnie was murdered, we did a major bust. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.720 Although Karen worked undercover, her name was listed throughout the 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.760 court documents. 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.840 All over the indictment. Is my name again and again 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:56.760 and again. They know who I am. And the people 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:01.240 that I identified had been released from the day before. 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.920 Those drug dealers Karen helped to put away were back 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.319 on the street the day before Bonnie's mysterious death. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:16.320 You just never a thought that somebody like that would 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.120 hurt your child. It just made me so sick to think, 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:25.440 oh my god, Bonnie may be dead because of my 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:27.760 work with the police department. 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.720 Eighteen year old Bonnie Craig was supposed to be in 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.680 school on the morning of September twenty eighth, nineteen ninety four. Instead, 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.120 the police found her face down in a creek some 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.120 ten miles from her college campus. They ruled her death 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:58.000 a hiking accident, but after viewing her daughter's remains, Bonnie's mother, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:09:59.800 Karen was furious. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.720 You see a Bonnie's body and I see her knuckles. 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:14.400 They're all battered, and I realized, no, these are defensive wounds. 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:19.000 She's fought for her life, and I told them, you 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.679 need to get back here, take more pictures. It's not 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:24.079 a hiking accident. 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.319 Karen worked with the Anchorage Police Department and at the 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.000 time had recently helped break up a dangerous drug cartel. 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.760 She feared that that bust might be connected to Bonnie's death. 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:41.680 Because of the work I've been doing. Maybe they have 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.080 gone after me. Maybe they are doing that to get 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.640 back at me, to get back atn Angriage Police Department. 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.120 Alaska State troopers took a second look at Bonnie's autopsy 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.240 and agreed that her death was not accidental, but they 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.920 assured Karen it was not the work of a local 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:01.680 drug cartel. 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.800 They said, no, this had to be somebody on their own. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.040 There wasn't more than one person involved in this. 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.040 At the time, the troopers were focused on a different suspect, 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:20.319 Karen's ex husband, Gary, Gary was not Bonnie's biological father, 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.920 but he raised her. This was the person she called dad. 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.600 Gary and I got married when Bonnie was just three 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:34.600 years old, so Gary took over as dad immediately and 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:36.200 was always dad to her. 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.960 But Karen and Gary's marriage didn't last. The two divorced 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.319 in nineteen ninety two, which stung their children. 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.319 You know, they didn't want their mom and dad divorced. 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:49.240 That's hard for kids. 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.880 Although Karen and Gary tried to remain civil, it wasn't easy. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.679 Things got especially tense when Bonnie decided to move in 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.959 with Gary right before she start to college. 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.920 I was devastated when Bonnie moved out. I mean, I 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.480 was so hurt because she didn't tell me. She said, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:11.559 I didn't want to tell you because I knew you 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.560 would want to stop me. It's going to be easier 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.560 for me to get to school and to college, she 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:19.560 was talking about. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:24.439 So just before college started, Bonnie moved in with her 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.800 then former stepdad, and there was a reason the police 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.880 wanted to question him. 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.920 Gary was supposed to be out of town and he 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:40.959 came back early. In fact, he got back the night 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:46.199 before and he was in bed sleeping when Bonnie left 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.120 for school the next day. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.480 That caught the attention of investigators. 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:57.560 Because he came back early and Bonnie ended up dead 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:02.760 the next day. They were looking into it. 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:07.079 It was an uncomfortable situation, not only for Gary but 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:07.680 for Karen. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:13.120 Gary was her dad, he loved her dearly. But yet 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.640 I still started to think could it have been him? 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.920 You know, we had gone through a nasty divorce and 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.800 he wasn't happy with me. There was anger towards me, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:27.920 but no, not to the cats. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.679 Investigators didn't want to spook Gary, so they came up 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.960 with a plan. They asked Karen, Gary, and all of 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:40.120 their children to voluntarily provide their fingerprints and a sample 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:40.640 of DNA. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.960 They were afraid that if they just asked Gary that 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:45.680 he might lawyer up. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.720 But Gary didn't lawyer up. He cooperated with investigators and 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:51.280 told them he had an alibi. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.240 They had talked to people where he worked and he 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:56.560 was in the office that day. 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.640 Three months after Gary supplied his DNA to investigators, he 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:02.800 was finally cleared. 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.200 So we know that they did interview members of the 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.520 family and her boyfriend, but at the time they were 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.360 quickly ruled out as suspects. 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.480 Maria Downey worked for an Anchorage TV station. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.040 Bonnie was Karen Foster's daughter, someone of who I've known 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:18.839 for years. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.200 The two were longtime friends, and for Maria, covering the 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.960 murder investigation of a friend's daughter wasn't easy. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.040 It was really tough. I think it was tough for 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.840 the whole community to hear that because Bonnie was such 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.840 a well loved young lady. She was Alaska grown. She 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.960 was always involved in from high school to junior high 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:44.160 and at the university, very active in the community, really intelligent, 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.920 young girl, kind, compassionate, and so we really hit the 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:47.800 community hard. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.000 Karen confided in Maria and shared the frustration she had 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:53.640 with the Alaska State Troopers. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.560 She felt like troopers weren't doing enough because she believed 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.640 right away there was a killer out there. 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:05.560 The troopers originally declared Banni's death an accident, which upset Karen, 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.600 but once investigators came around to what Karen originally suspected, 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.280 she was equally dismayed. And how little homicide detectives shared 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:20.240 with her. Keep in mind, Karen was an insider, one 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.239 of them, and yet she was still shut out. 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.480 The repeat line was they weren't releasing more information. Now 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.120 we're all aware during a murder investigation, you do withhold 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:35.480 key information, but in this case, so much information was 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.400 with HOWLD that I really do think it jeopardized their 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.680 case because people out there who might have noticed something 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.280 suspicious going on never said anything because they thought it 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:45.880 was accidental. 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.880 At the time, Karen was a mom on a mission. 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.800 Nothing was going to stop her. She responded by holding 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:54.560 press conferences of her own. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.600 I think it was so important to hear from Karen 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.680 because we were getting so little information from the troopers 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.240 that she helped to fill in some of the blanks 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.080 where Bonnie was supposed to be what she typically would 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.120 be doing that time of day, and it really helped, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.240 I think, the community to start being more aware of 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:15.880 what they might have seen that day. 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.000 Karen then took it a step further. She started her 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:25.320 own investigation. Any lead that came in she'd personally look into, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:30.120 including one about a student from Bonnie's English class. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.840 And she showed me excerpts from a student journal a 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.040 student who happened to be in class with Bonnie, and 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.640 they were really disturbing, very graphic, very violent stories within 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:41.240 this journal. 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.840 He mentioned that September twenty eighth was going to be 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:51.000 a very stressful day for him that he was being 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:51.960 put to a test. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.040 September twenty eighth was the day of Bonnie's murder, and 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.480 this student who wrote that September twenty eighth would be 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:05.120 a stressful day for him, was absent from class that day. 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.800 He seemed very violent and very angry, and in one 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.640 location had even said die bitch. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.959 Later that day, on September twenty eighth, that student eventually 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.080 showed up to his professor's office. 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.760 And he came to her office later on in the 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.680 day and he looked soak and wet, like he'd just 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.719 gotten out of the shower, and she said he rereaked 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:29.680 of perfume. 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.040 That student informed the professor that he had been at 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.000 McHugh Creek that day when they pulled a body out 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.800 of the water. It was Bonnie Craig. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:45.679 We both thought that that was incredibly strange, and so 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.840 we brought that to the troopers again, and they said 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.160 that they had already looked into him and they had 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.240 taken his DNA, and DNA didn't match. 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.240 It was another dead end for investigators. By this point, 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.200 nearly all of Bonnie's Fais, family, friends, and acquaintances had 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:07.119 been questioned. And cleared, meaning the suspect likely was someone 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:12.480 Bonnie didn't know. Three long years would pass before the 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.040 Alaska State Troopers revealed new details about Bonnie's murder to 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:17.680 the public. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.639 The troopers told me Bonnie was raped. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.960 On the third anniversary of Bonnie's murder, Alaska State Troopers 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:32.600 publicly shared that Bonnie had been sexually assaulted and severely 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.160 beaten just before she toppled over a cliff and plunged 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.080 to her death. They hoped this information would help someone 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:45.439 come forward with a name. Bonnie's mother once again felt 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.440 this information would have been helpful earlier in the investigation. 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:57.800 Three years after she was abducted, raped and murdered, they 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.920 finally allowed the public to know. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:04.760 It was really difficult. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.879 So the story just kind of kept unfolding along the way. 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:11.520 It's just stunning. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.240 Journalist Maria Downey had never heard of holding this information 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.359 from the public for so long. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.800 We asked the troopers repeatedly why they waited so long 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.120 and why this information wasn't released, and we never quite 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:27.120 got a clear answer. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.480 At that same nineteen ninety seven press conference, the Alaska 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.600 State Troopers also shared that the backpack Bonnie was carrying 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.080 that morning was never recovered. 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:43.400 The troubling part about this is that I think more information, 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:45.480 a lot more details, would have helped this case. 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.800 Bonnie Craig was murdered in nineteen ten ninety four. Throughout 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.680 their investigation, the Alaska State Troopers questioned dozens of suspects, 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.359 but by the year two thousand, the case remained unsolved. 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.600 We covered this story for months and then it was 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:19.360 years journalist Maria Downey. As time went on, we heard 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.439 very little about the case. It could very well be 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.560 investigators were working behind the scenes on it, but there 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:29.280 were still posters and there were still flyers being disseminated 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.840 years after to help solve this case. 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.760 Frustrated with the investigation, Bonnie's mother, Karen did her own 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:37.720 detective work. 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:43.479 Many mothers they want to find justice. They'll do all 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.960 they can to find closure, to find the person responsible 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.760 for their child's death. But Karen took it not just one, 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.960 not just two, but many many steps forward from there. 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:54.359 She was that. 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.640 Steady, informational source who would uncover things on her own 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.400 and investigat her own daughter's case, and she continually kept 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:04.520 front and center to get that information out to help 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:05.280 solve this case. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.560 Karen did everything she could to keep the unsolved case 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:14.560 in the news. She continued to host her own press conferences, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.639 and she made sure that Bonnie's face remained in the 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:19.280 public eye. 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.800 Throughout Anchorage, there were signs all over town. We're talking 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:28.520 big billboard signs, bus signs, basically to help find Bonnie's killer. 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:30.280 And that went on for years. 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:36.120 In giant letters, these billboards asked who killed Bonnie and 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.400 someone's getting away with murder. 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:43.640 I had people walking up to me all the time, 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.399 giving me a hug and saying they were sorry. They 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.439 were total strangers, but they knew from the amount of 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:56.160 interviewers I had done that I was Bonnie's mom. 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.920 Some people even called Karen with TIFFs late at night. 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:04.000 Even some psychics contacted her. No matter how far fetched 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.240 the information they shared may have seemed, Karen took all 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:09.359 of them seriously. 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.919 I would write everything down, I would take notes, and 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.320 I bring it to the Alaska State Troopers and they 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.080 would just say, okay, we're looking into it. 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.639 In two thousand, the DNA found in Bonnie when she 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.520 was murdered was entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:30.920 System known as CODIS. That program formally went into place 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.320 in nineteen ninety eight with the hopes of solving cold 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:35.960 cases like Bonnie's. 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:42.320 I truly believe that our only weapon of finding anything 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:43.480 it was DNA. 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.160 DNA helped to clear all of the suspects the Alaska 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:52.320 State Troopers questioned except for one, and this is someone 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.200 we haven't talked about yet, the bus driver who drove 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.720 Bonnie to campus on the morning of her murder. 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:05.280 They got some reports that he had been inappropriate with 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.119 a couple of young girls on the bus. 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.960 Notably, that driver wasn't the usual driver. 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.560 For the route that day. I think he was filling 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:23.000 in for somebody else, and he took off just after 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:23.640 that day. 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.480 The bus driver sort of disappeared, but the troopers tracked 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.680 him down and immediately were suspicious of his story. 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.399 When he was interviewed, he said he didn't see Bonnie 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.480 on the bus, and then I believe the Alaska State 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.480 Troopers had a couple other people that said, yeah, she 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:49.080 was on the bus, so they were concerned. 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:52.960 So investigators collected a sample of the bus driver's DNA 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:55.479 and tested it to see if it matched the DNA 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:59.560 found in Bonnie. When the results came back, they were 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:01.399 all speechless. 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:04.600 The DNA came up with the match. 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.840 This was the moment that Karen had been waiting for. 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:14.840 You're just hoping so much that yes, make this it 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.639 and get the evidence so that we can convict somebody. 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:23.800 But there's more. The Alaska lab that did that testing 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:28.440 was equipped to test six spots of DNA. Then investigators 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.920 ordered a more advanced DNA test that looked at thirteen 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:33.280 different points of DNA. 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:37.760