Speaker 1: When a teenage girl was found dead in a creek.
Speaker 1: The police said it was an accident, but was it.
Speaker 2: She had all these head injuries. I see her knuckles,
Speaker 2: They're all battered, and I realized, no, these are defensive wounds.
Speaker 2: She's fought for her life. You've got to look into
Speaker 2: this as if it's murder.
Speaker 1: Determined to find her daughter's killer, a mother went in
Speaker 1: search of justice.
Speaker 2: There is someone out there and they're getting away with murder.
Speaker 1: Her investigation led her to consider the unthinkable. Was her
Speaker 1: daughter's death a result of something she did?
Speaker 2: It just made me so sick to think it could
Speaker 2: have been solved in wags instead. It was seventeen year saga.
Speaker 1: Today, we're in Angora, j Alaska, for the first episode
Speaker 1: of Someone Is Getting Away with Murder. I'm Slow Glass
Speaker 1: and this is American Hama Side. Just to note that
Speaker 1: this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1: Relocating from southern California to Anchorage was a big deal
Speaker 1: for Karen Foster and her family.
Speaker 2: My children had never been to an area like Angorage before,
Speaker 2: and I was concerned that they would not enjoy the winters,
Speaker 2: the cold, but they totally adapted immediately.
Speaker 1: Ditching their shorts for snowsuits. Went easier than expected for
Speaker 1: Karen and her children.
Speaker 2: You know, Anchorage was incredible and there's so much to see,
Speaker 2: and the kids were learning so much, you know, going
Speaker 2: to glaciers, ski hills, you've got parks, you've got hiking trails,
Speaker 2: there's just so much adventure there.
Speaker 1: Arguably Karen's most active child was her daughter, Bonnie, who,
Speaker 1: by most accounts, was not your typical teenager. She wrote poetry,
Speaker 1: played the violin, and planned to become a psychologist.
Speaker 2: She started a group of students against drunk drivers when
Speaker 2: she lost a really good friend of hers. So she
Speaker 2: was very kind, caring, just a sweetheart day everybody.
Speaker 1: Bonnie had brown hair, a face full of freckles, and
Speaker 1: stood just five feet tall, not exactly someone you'd expect
Speaker 1: to see on a wrestling mat.
Speaker 2: She was into wrestling, which is something I never really
Speaker 2: wanted her to do.
Speaker 1: At her high school, Bonnie even managed to break the
Speaker 1: glass ceiling.
Speaker 3: She was the first female wrestler in the state of Alaska.
Speaker 1: Kristin McCart was friends with Bonnie.
Speaker 3: She was always trying to like do things that other
Speaker 3: people would perceive they shouldn't do. It was her not
Speaker 3: to be friends with Bonnie. She was probably one of
Speaker 3: the kindest people I've ever met. It was almost impossible
Speaker 3: for somebody not to like her.
Speaker 1: Bonnie graduated from high school in nineteen ninety four and
Speaker 1: planned to follow her boyfriend to college in California, but
Speaker 1: her plan didn't work out.
Speaker 3: Everybody's talking about like, what we're you gonna do next year,
Speaker 3: and Bonnie seemed like sad a little bit about graduating,
Speaker 3: and she wasn't going to be going out of state.
Speaker 1: So Bonnie's mom wanted her to stay home for her
Speaker 1: freshman year.
Speaker 3: But ultimately that was her plan, was to go out
Speaker 3: of stay with him.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, Kristen and Bonnie started classes at
Speaker 1: the University of Alaska in Anchorage.
Speaker 3: I mean, we were both working pretty much full time
Speaker 3: to help pay for college because neither of us wanted
Speaker 3: a lot of debt.
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, September twenty eighth, nineteen ninety four, Bonnie left
Speaker 1: her home before sunrise to catch her bus to campus.
Speaker 3: But nobody remembered seeing her at school that day.
Speaker 1: Bonnie never showed up for her seven am English class
Speaker 1: or any of her classes that day.
Speaker 3: Was really weird that she didn't come to school because
Speaker 3: she didn't she I don't remember ever missing a day
Speaker 3: of school in high school, Like even when she was sick,
Speaker 3: she would still show up.
Speaker 1: That evening, Kristen's boyfriend learned why Bonnie didn't make it
Speaker 1: to class.
Speaker 3: He said, they found Bonnie's body, and I was like, what,
Speaker 3: like total shock. He just says, yeah, they found her
Speaker 3: body at McHugh Creek. They don't know what happened, and
Speaker 3: like I just started crying.
Speaker 1: McHugh Creek runs through a state park some ten miles
Speaker 1: from both the University of Alaska campus and Bonnie's home
Speaker 1: in Anchorage.
Speaker 3: We all wondered, like how she got there. She didn't
Speaker 3: even drive a car.
Speaker 1: Bonnie didn't have a driver's license and preferred taking public transportation.
Speaker 1: But note buses went to that forest preserve.
Speaker 3: And that was such a long walk. You would have
Speaker 3: to walk down the highway quite a ways.
Speaker 1: All of that added to the mystery.
Speaker 3: It would have meant that she chose to get in
Speaker 3: a car with someone, which she wouldn't have done. So
Speaker 3: in my mind and in the mind of most of
Speaker 3: our friends, we knew something had happened to cause her
Speaker 3: to end.
Speaker 2: Up in Mechu Creek.
Speaker 1: Bonnie's mother, Karen, was vacationing in Florida when an Alaska
Speaker 1: State trooper called her with the news.
Speaker 2: A trooper gets on the line and he says, that
Speaker 2: my daughter Bonnie is dead. She fell in a hiking accident.
Speaker 1: The trooper explained that Bonnie slipped off the ledge at
Speaker 1: a state park in Anchorage, hit her head on some
Speaker 1: jagged rocks, and plunged more than thirty feet into a creek.
Speaker 1: He told her that another hiker spotted her body that
Speaker 1: afternoon and called the police.
Speaker 2: I mean total denial. And I asked them who was
Speaker 2: with her? He says there was no one with her.
Speaker 2: I said she didn't drive, how would she have gotten
Speaker 2: out there? And he has no answer for me. I
Speaker 2: said what time was she found? And he said two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon. I said, no, she should have
Speaker 2: been at the university. She had papers that were due,
Speaker 2: and she had a paper that she was going to
Speaker 2: be handing in that day at her English class.
Speaker 1: If Bonnie had gone hiking that afternoon, that meant she
Speaker 1: would have had to skip school.
Speaker 2: There's no way that Bonnie would have missed a class
Speaker 2: she was very particular about going to school and going
Speaker 2: to her classes.
Speaker 1: Bonnie was found in a creek several miles from campus
Speaker 1: with a dozen cuts to her head, including a deep
Speaker 1: gash at the base of her skull. She also had
Speaker 1: bruises on her knuckles, and strangely, Bonnie's back pack, keys,
Speaker 1: and even the can of mace attached to her keychain
Speaker 1: were missing.
Speaker 2: Nothing made sense, so I immediately told him, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's got to be murder. You've got to look into
Speaker 2: this as if it's murder.
Speaker 1: Karen spent the long flight home trying to make sense
Speaker 1: of what the troopers told her.
Speaker 2: So from Florida back to Alaska, you're at least twelve
Speaker 2: hours flying time, you can't sleep, and you're just you're shaking.
Speaker 2: Who would hurt Bonnie? How could this be?
Speaker 1: Bonnie was a creature of habit and had routine every
Speaker 1: morning when she went to school, So.
Speaker 2: That morning, body would have gotten up, probably her own
Speaker 2: five five point thirty, walked down the block and then
Speaker 2: out to a bus stop a mile from the house.
Speaker 2: She would have been at the university from a seven
Speaker 2: am class until three in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Karen wondered if someone had been watching Bonnie and knew
Speaker 1: her usual route, and that's one of thought sent chills
Speaker 1: down her spine.
Speaker 2: So I was a reserve police officer with anguage Police Department,
Speaker 2: and we would go out and buy drugs from certain people.
Speaker 2: We also had informants that would tell us who the
Speaker 2: people were and who was selling drugs and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And just before Bonnie was murdered, we did a major bust.
Speaker 1: Although Karen worked undercover, her name was listed throughout the
Speaker 1: court documents.
Speaker 2: All over the indictment. Is my name again and again
Speaker 2: and again. They know who I am. And the people
Speaker 2: that I identified had been released from the day before.
Speaker 1: Those drug dealers Karen helped to put away were back
Speaker 1: on the street the day before Bonnie's mysterious death.
Speaker 2: You just never a thought that somebody like that would
Speaker 2: hurt your child. It just made me so sick to think,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Bonnie may be dead because of my
Speaker 2: work with the police department.
Speaker 1: Eighteen year old Bonnie Craig was supposed to be in
Speaker 1: school on the morning of September twenty eighth, nineteen ninety four. Instead,
Speaker 1: the police found her face down in a creek some
Speaker 1: ten miles from her college campus. They ruled her death
Speaker 1: a hiking accident, but after viewing her daughter's remains, Bonnie's mother,
Speaker 1: Karen was furious.
Speaker 2: You see a Bonnie's body and I see her knuckles.
Speaker 2: They're all battered, and I realized, no, these are defensive wounds.
Speaker 2: She's fought for her life, and I told them, you
Speaker 2: need to get back here, take more pictures. It's not
Speaker 2: a hiking accident.
Speaker 1: Karen worked with the Anchorage Police Department and at the
Speaker 1: time had recently helped break up a dangerous drug cartel.
Speaker 1: She feared that that bust might be connected to Bonnie's death.
Speaker 2: Because of the work I've been doing. Maybe they have
Speaker 2: gone after me. Maybe they are doing that to get
Speaker 2: back at me, to get back atn Angriage Police Department.
Speaker 1: Alaska State troopers took a second look at Bonnie's autopsy
Speaker 1: and agreed that her death was not accidental, but they
Speaker 1: assured Karen it was not the work of a local
Speaker 1: drug cartel.
Speaker 2: They said, no, this had to be somebody on their own.
Speaker 2: There wasn't more than one person involved in this.
Speaker 1: At the time, the troopers were focused on a different suspect,
Speaker 1: Karen's ex husband, Gary, Gary was not Bonnie's biological father,
Speaker 1: but he raised her. This was the person she called dad.
Speaker 2: Gary and I got married when Bonnie was just three
Speaker 2: years old, so Gary took over as dad immediately and
Speaker 2: was always dad to her.
Speaker 1: But Karen and Gary's marriage didn't last. The two divorced
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, which stung their children.
Speaker 2: You know, they didn't want their mom and dad divorced.
Speaker 2: That's hard for kids.
Speaker 1: Although Karen and Gary tried to remain civil, it wasn't easy.
Speaker 1: Things got especially tense when Bonnie decided to move in
Speaker 1: with Gary right before she start to college.
Speaker 2: I was devastated when Bonnie moved out. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was so hurt because she didn't tell me. She said,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to tell you because I knew you
Speaker 2: would want to stop me. It's going to be easier
Speaker 2: for me to get to school and to college, she
Speaker 2: was talking about.
Speaker 1: So just before college started, Bonnie moved in with her
Speaker 1: then former stepdad, and there was a reason the police
Speaker 1: wanted to question him.
Speaker 2: Gary was supposed to be out of town and he
Speaker 2: came back early. In fact, he got back the night
Speaker 2: before and he was in bed sleeping when Bonnie left
Speaker 2: for school the next day.
Speaker 1: That caught the attention of investigators.
Speaker 2: Because he came back early and Bonnie ended up dead
Speaker 2: the next day. They were looking into it.
Speaker 1: It was an uncomfortable situation, not only for Gary but
Speaker 1: for Karen.
Speaker 2: Gary was her dad, he loved her dearly. But yet
Speaker 2: I still started to think could it have been him?
Speaker 2: You know, we had gone through a nasty divorce and
Speaker 2: he wasn't happy with me. There was anger towards me,
Speaker 2: but no, not to the cats.
Speaker 1: Investigators didn't want to spook Gary, so they came up
Speaker 1: with a plan. They asked Karen, Gary, and all of
Speaker 1: their children to voluntarily provide their fingerprints and a sample
Speaker 1: of DNA.
Speaker 2: They were afraid that if they just asked Gary that
Speaker 2: he might lawyer up.
Speaker 1: But Gary didn't lawyer up. He cooperated with investigators and
Speaker 1: told them he had an alibi.
Speaker 2: They had talked to people where he worked and he
Speaker 2: was in the office that day.
Speaker 1: Three months after Gary supplied his DNA to investigators, he
Speaker 1: was finally cleared.
Speaker 4: So we know that they did interview members of the
Speaker 4: family and her boyfriend, but at the time they were
Speaker 4: quickly ruled out as suspects.
Speaker 1: Maria Downey worked for an Anchorage TV station.
Speaker 4: Bonnie was Karen Foster's daughter, someone of who I've known
Speaker 4: for years.
Speaker 1: The two were longtime friends, and for Maria, covering the
Speaker 1: murder investigation of a friend's daughter wasn't easy.
Speaker 4: It was really tough. I think it was tough for
Speaker 4: the whole community to hear that because Bonnie was such
Speaker 4: a well loved young lady. She was Alaska grown. She
Speaker 4: was always involved in from high school to junior high
Speaker 4: and at the university, very active in the community, really intelligent,
Speaker 4: young girl, kind, compassionate, and so we really hit the
Speaker 4: community hard.
Speaker 1: Karen confided in Maria and shared the frustration she had
Speaker 1: with the Alaska State Troopers.
Speaker 4: She felt like troopers weren't doing enough because she believed
Speaker 4: right away there was a killer out there.
Speaker 1: The troopers originally declared Banni's death an accident, which upset Karen,
Speaker 1: but once investigators came around to what Karen originally suspected,
Speaker 1: she was equally dismayed. And how little homicide detectives shared
Speaker 1: with her. Keep in mind, Karen was an insider, one
Speaker 1: of them, and yet she was still shut out.
Speaker 4: The repeat line was they weren't releasing more information. Now
Speaker 4: we're all aware during a murder investigation, you do withhold
Speaker 4: key information, but in this case, so much information was
Speaker 4: with HOWLD that I really do think it jeopardized their
Speaker 4: case because people out there who might have noticed something
Speaker 4: suspicious going on never said anything because they thought it
Speaker 4: was accidental.
Speaker 1: At the time, Karen was a mom on a mission.
Speaker 1: Nothing was going to stop her. She responded by holding
Speaker 1: press conferences of her own.
Speaker 4: I think it was so important to hear from Karen
Speaker 4: because we were getting so little information from the troopers
Speaker 4: that she helped to fill in some of the blanks
Speaker 4: where Bonnie was supposed to be what she typically would
Speaker 4: be doing that time of day, and it really helped,
Speaker 4: I think, the community to start being more aware of
Speaker 4: what they might have seen that day.
Speaker 1: Karen then took it a step further. She started her
Speaker 1: own investigation. Any lead that came in she'd personally look into,
Speaker 1: including one about a student from Bonnie's English class.
Speaker 4: And she showed me excerpts from a student journal a
Speaker 4: student who happened to be in class with Bonnie, and
Speaker 4: they were really disturbing, very graphic, very violent stories within
Speaker 4: this journal.
Speaker 2: He mentioned that September twenty eighth was going to be
Speaker 2: a very stressful day for him that he was being
Speaker 2: put to a test.
Speaker 1: September twenty eighth was the day of Bonnie's murder, and
Speaker 1: this student who wrote that September twenty eighth would be
Speaker 1: a stressful day for him, was absent from class that day.
Speaker 2: He seemed very violent and very angry, and in one
Speaker 2: location had even said die bitch.
Speaker 1: Later that day, on September twenty eighth, that student eventually
Speaker 1: showed up to his professor's office.
Speaker 2: And he came to her office later on in the
Speaker 2: day and he looked soak and wet, like he'd just
Speaker 2: gotten out of the shower, and she said he rereaked
Speaker 2: of perfume.
Speaker 1: That student informed the professor that he had been at
Speaker 1: McHugh Creek that day when they pulled a body out
Speaker 1: of the water. It was Bonnie Craig.
Speaker 2: We both thought that that was incredibly strange, and so
Speaker 2: we brought that to the troopers again, and they said
Speaker 2: that they had already looked into him and they had
Speaker 2: taken his DNA, and DNA didn't match.
Speaker 1: It was another dead end for investigators. By this point,
Speaker 1: nearly all of Bonnie's Fais, family, friends, and acquaintances had
Speaker 1: been questioned. And cleared, meaning the suspect likely was someone
Speaker 1: Bonnie didn't know. Three long years would pass before the
Speaker 1: Alaska State Troopers revealed new details about Bonnie's murder to
Speaker 1: the public.
Speaker 2: The troopers told me Bonnie was raped.
Speaker 1: On the third anniversary of Bonnie's murder, Alaska State Troopers
Speaker 1: publicly shared that Bonnie had been sexually assaulted and severely
Speaker 1: beaten just before she toppled over a cliff and plunged
Speaker 1: to her death. They hoped this information would help someone
Speaker 1: come forward with a name. Bonnie's mother once again felt
Speaker 1: this information would have been helpful earlier in the investigation.
Speaker 5: Three years after she was abducted, raped and murdered, they
Speaker 5: finally allowed the public to know.
Speaker 2: It was really difficult.
Speaker 4: So the story just kind of kept unfolding along the way.
Speaker 4: It's just stunning.
Speaker 1: Journalist Maria Downey had never heard of holding this information
Speaker 1: from the public for so long.
Speaker 4: We asked the troopers repeatedly why they waited so long
Speaker 4: and why this information wasn't released, and we never quite
Speaker 4: got a clear answer.
Speaker 1: At that same nineteen ninety seven press conference, the Alaska
Speaker 1: State Troopers also shared that the backpack Bonnie was carrying
Speaker 1: that morning was never recovered.
Speaker 4: The troubling part about this is that I think more information,
Speaker 4: a lot more details, would have helped this case.
Speaker 1: Bonnie Craig was murdered in nineteen ten ninety four. Throughout
Speaker 1: their investigation, the Alaska State Troopers questioned dozens of suspects,
Speaker 1: but by the year two thousand, the case remained unsolved.
Speaker 4: We covered this story for months and then it was
Speaker 4: years journalist Maria Downey. As time went on, we heard
Speaker 4: very little about the case. It could very well be
Speaker 4: investigators were working behind the scenes on it, but there
Speaker 4: were still posters and there were still flyers being disseminated
Speaker 4: years after to help solve this case.
Speaker 1: Frustrated with the investigation, Bonnie's mother, Karen did her own
Speaker 1: detective work.
Speaker 4: Many mothers they want to find justice. They'll do all
Speaker 4: they can to find closure, to find the person responsible
Speaker 4: for their child's death. But Karen took it not just one,
Speaker 4: not just two, but many many steps forward from there.
Speaker 2: She was that.
Speaker 4: Steady, informational source who would uncover things on her own
Speaker 4: and investigat her own daughter's case, and she continually kept
Speaker 4: front and center to get that information out to help
Speaker 4: solve this case.
Speaker 1: Karen did everything she could to keep the unsolved case
Speaker 1: in the news. She continued to host her own press conferences,
Speaker 1: and she made sure that Bonnie's face remained in the
Speaker 1: public eye.
Speaker 4: Throughout Anchorage, there were signs all over town. We're talking
Speaker 4: big billboard signs, bus signs, basically to help find Bonnie's killer.
Speaker 4: And that went on for years.
Speaker 1: In giant letters, these billboards asked who killed Bonnie and
Speaker 1: someone's getting away with murder.
Speaker 2: I had people walking up to me all the time,
Speaker 2: giving me a hug and saying they were sorry. They
Speaker 2: were total strangers, but they knew from the amount of
Speaker 2: interviewers I had done that I was Bonnie's mom.
Speaker 1: Some people even called Karen with TIFFs late at night.
Speaker 1: Even some psychics contacted her. No matter how far fetched
Speaker 1: the information they shared may have seemed, Karen took all
Speaker 1: of them seriously.
Speaker 2: I would write everything down, I would take notes, and
Speaker 2: I bring it to the Alaska State Troopers and they
Speaker 2: would just say, okay, we're looking into it.
Speaker 1: In two thousand, the DNA found in Bonnie when she
Speaker 1: was murdered was entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index
Speaker 1: System known as CODIS. That program formally went into place
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight with the hopes of solving cold
Speaker 1: cases like Bonnie's.
Speaker 2: I truly believe that our only weapon of finding anything
Speaker 2: it was DNA.
Speaker 1: DNA helped to clear all of the suspects the Alaska
Speaker 1: State Troopers questioned except for one, and this is someone
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about yet, the bus driver who drove
Speaker 1: Bonnie to campus on the morning of her murder.
Speaker 2: They got some reports that he had been inappropriate with
Speaker 2: a couple of young girls on the bus.
Speaker 1: Notably, that driver wasn't the usual driver.
Speaker 2: For the route that day. I think he was filling
Speaker 2: in for somebody else, and he took off just after
Speaker 2: that day.
Speaker 1: The bus driver sort of disappeared, but the troopers tracked
Speaker 1: him down and immediately were suspicious of his story.
Speaker 2: When he was interviewed, he said he didn't see Bonnie
Speaker 2: on the bus, and then I believe the Alaska State
Speaker 2: Troopers had a couple other people that said, yeah, she
Speaker 2: was on the bus, so they were concerned.
Speaker 1: So investigators collected a sample of the bus driver's DNA
Speaker 1: and tested it to see if it matched the DNA
Speaker 1: found in Bonnie. When the results came back, they were
Speaker 1: all speechless.
Speaker 2: The DNA came up with the match.
Speaker 1: This was the moment that Karen had been waiting for.
Speaker 2: You're just hoping so much that yes, make this it
Speaker 2: and get the evidence so that we can convict somebody.
Speaker 1: But there's more. The Alaska lab that did that testing
Speaker 1: was equipped to test six spots of DNA. Then investigators
Speaker 1: ordered a more advanced DNA test that looked at thirteen
Speaker 1: different points of DNA.
Speaker 2: After they did a second DNA test, they knew, no,
Speaker 2: it's this isn't the guy. It's unbelievable, Just freaking unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine her disappointment. That had to have felt
Speaker 1: like two steps forward one huge step back. It was
Speaker 1: another blow to investigators and Karen.
Speaker 2: It was like my guts had been ripped out. I
Speaker 2: basically shut down.
Speaker 1: In September two thousand and one, Karen had plans to
Speaker 1: do her annual press conference on the anniversary of Bonnie's death,
Speaker 1: but then came nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: After September eleventh, I decided, you know, our whole nation's
Speaker 2: grieving and it was time to move on. The murder
Speaker 2: of one girl in Alaska was nothing compared to September eleventh.
Speaker 1: Instead of going back on the media circuit, Karen decided
Speaker 1: to take a more low key route.
Speaker 2: Not that I was ever going to give up. I
Speaker 2: would always check with the Alaska State Troopers and ask
Speaker 2: what was going on, if they're doing anything, is there
Speaker 2: any leads?
Speaker 1: Their answer was always the same nothing. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and two, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries highlighted Bonnie's case,
Speaker 1: but once again there were no arrests. It wouldn't be
Speaker 1: until two thousand and six, some twelve years after Bonnie
Speaker 1: Craig's murder, that news came in about the investigation.
Speaker 2: I am in Thailand, on a remote island, and I
Speaker 2: get this email saying that it's from the Alaska State
Speaker 2: Troopers fan that he would really like to talk to me.
Speaker 1: Karen managed to get to a telephone. That's when she
Speaker 1: heard the words that she had been waiting over a
Speaker 1: decade to hear.
Speaker 2: He found the killer.
Speaker 1: DNA evidence led Alaska State Troopers to a suspect some
Speaker 1: three thousand miles away in New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: They had identified somebody who's matched.
Speaker 1: The suspect was a man named Kenneth Dion, who at
Speaker 1: the time was thirty seven years old.
Speaker 2: He was addicted to oxy conton and successfully robbed a
Speaker 2: couple of pharmacies to get his oxy conton.
Speaker 1: At the time of his arrest, Kenneth Dion was serving
Speaker 1: time for those robberies. In two thousand and six, his
Speaker 1: DNA was put into the National CODIS database and quickly
Speaker 1: matched the DNA found in Bonnie.
Speaker 2: They were almost one hundred percent sure that this was
Speaker 2: the guy who killed Bonnie.
Speaker 1: Alaska troopers flew out to New Hampshire to interview Kenneth Dion.
Speaker 1: Kenneth claimed he had no memory of Bonnie and denied
Speaker 1: any involvement in her murder, but his DNA said otherwise,
Speaker 1: so the police arrested Kenneth and charged him with sexually
Speaker 1: assaulting and murdering Bonnie Craig. In the twelve years between
Speaker 1: Bonnie's death and the arrest, the name Kenneth Dion never
Speaker 1: came up as a suspect.
Speaker 2: He didn't know Bonnie and none of us knew him.
Speaker 2: It was a total random crime.
Speaker 1: Even with her daughter's suspected killer and custody, Karen couldn't
Speaker 1: shake a bad feeling.
Speaker 2: I always thought I would be so excited and relieved
Speaker 2: to hear that, and I just got so fearful thinking,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, are we going to be able to
Speaker 2: convict him? Oh, We've got his DNA.
Speaker 1: And his defense team would put up a fight that
Speaker 1: would force investigators to account for a key piece of
Speaker 1: missing evidence.
Speaker 2: All you need is one juror who could end up throwing.
Speaker 1: The case, all of which would push Karen's patience to
Speaker 1: its limits.
Speaker 2: It could have been solved in weeks. Instead it was
Speaker 2: seventeen year saga.
Speaker 1: Would end with Karen engaged in a totally different fight.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's too important. We need to change
Speaker 2: this law now.
Speaker 1: In the conclusion of someone is getting away with murder,
Speaker 1: we'll go into the court room where a key piece
Speaker 1: of evidence goes missing. I'm Slow Glass. That's next time
Speaker 1: on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team
Speaker 1: by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide
Speaker 1: is hosted and written by me slown Glass and is
Speaker 1: a production of Glass Podcasts, division of Glass Entertainment Group,
Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: by Nancy Glass and Todd Gants. The series is also
Speaker 1: written and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing by
Speaker 1: Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing,
Speaker 1: and mastering by Nico Ruka. American Homicides' theme song was
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Baines of Neiser Music Library provided by
Speaker 1: My Music. Follow American Homicide on Apple podcasts and please
Speaker 1: rate and review American Homicide. Your five star review goes
Speaker 1: a long way towards helping others find this show. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts s