EP 145 Who Killed Bonnie with Karen Foster

WEBVTT
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This episode contains discussions of murder and the
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emotional aftermath of losing a loved one to violence.
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Listener discretion is advised.
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I would drive around looking for
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vehicles that were given descriptions in the
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newspaper. I would go to the university
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and drive around and go out to McHugh Creek
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and try to figure out what could have happened.
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And it was a little obsessive.
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And certainly the Alaska State Troopers didn't
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appreciate me getting involved and looking
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around, but I felt like I needed to find out what
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happened. That was Karen Foster,
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the mother of Bonnie Craig, an 18-year-old University
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of Alaska Anchorage student who was sexually assaulted and murdered
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in September 1994.
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Bonnie's body was discovered near McHugh Creek.
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South of Anchorage, and for more than 12
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years, her murder remained unsolved.
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It took almost 17 years before it made it to court.
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During that time, Karen became a relentless advocate
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for her daughter, conducting her own investigation,
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pushing law enforcement for answers, and launching
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a public awareness campaign that made Bonnie's face and
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the words, who killed Bonnie? A familiar sight
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around Anchorage. There were posters,
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bumper stickers, ads in newspapers and
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on the sides of buses enlisting the help of the
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Anchorage community and ensuring that Bonnie's story would
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remain part of its collective memory.
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In 2006, DNA evidence finally
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identified Bonnie's killer, giving investigators
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a suspect after more than 12 years without answers.
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But Karen's work didn't stop there.
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She went on to advocate for changes to Alaska's DNA
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collection laws. After learning
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that Bonnie's killer had been arrested multiple times before investigators connected
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him to her murder, Karen realized
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that if his DNA had been collected during one of those earlier arrests,
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her daughter's case might have been solved years earlier.
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She took that realization to Alaska lawmakers
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and helped push through legislation in 2007 requiring
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DNA collection from people arrested for certain
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felony offenses. For Karen,
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it was an opportunity to turn her family's experience into
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something that might prevent other families from spending years waiting
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for answers. She details all of this in
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her book, Justice for Bonnie, a personal account
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of her daughter's murder, the years she spent searching for
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answers, and the ways grief determination,
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and the pursuit of justice reshaped her life and
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her family.
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So here she is, Karen Foster.
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Welcome to Chattermarks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum dedicated
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to exploring Alaska and the circumpolar north through
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the creative and critical thinking of ideas past, present, and future.
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My name is Cody Liska, and I'll be your host.
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In our email exchange, you said that we
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just passed an anniversary. Right.
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The murder happened September 28th, 1994.
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What's that like, that anniversary?
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You know, it's really strange. Up until
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9/11, it was always an
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event where I would make sure that everybody was aware
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that the killer was still on the loose, and I wanted to
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bring it up and make sure everybody was It was
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still on their minds and hoping that doing any
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kind of media events or anything like that,
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it would maybe possibly bring
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up some kind of information that
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troopers could use. Well, September 11th
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changed that all for me, and I felt like the whole nation
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was in mourning. And so from that time on,
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I did not bring it up anymore. And it's
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more of just a family thing. My kids,
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they go to the gravesite and they leave
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flowers. I think a lot of it changed
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back when Kenneth
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Deon was finally identified in 2007.
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Where everything also started to come back. And the September
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28th was again a very prominent day
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in our lives.
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Right now it's just a family thing though, and we all get together,
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um, and call each other and,
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you know, just let everybody know that we love each other.
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Before we start
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talking about the murder, I was wondering if
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it would be okay if I asked a few questions just about Bonnie
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and who she was. Absolutely.
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You know, because I think that when
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people know someone primarily because of the way they died,
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it can sometimes overwhelm everything about
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the way they lived. Is there something you
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wish people knew about Bonnie that has nothing to
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do with her murder? Right. She was a
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student at Service High School, and she had just
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enrolled and was 7 weeks into University
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of Alaska Anchorage. She was a violin
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player. She was a diving
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and swim coach, helped out with that.
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She worked as a natural helper,
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which was kind of a peer counseling group
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that people could go to her if they
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were having any issues. She started also a group,
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SADD, Students Against Drunk Drivers,
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after one of her friends died in
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a car accident where the kids had been drinking.
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And so she was very active with
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that. She was bubbly,
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a lot of fun, and I think she got along
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with just about everybody.
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She was also the first girl to join
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the wrestling team at Service High School. Yes,
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and I hated that. I hate wrestling.
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And to have your daughter do it, you think, oh no.
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I kind of felt like there was
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nothing I could do about it though, because when I went to school,
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I was the first girl to enroll in automotive
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and woodworking. I didn't want to take home ec.
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So went along with it. And It was
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really heartwarming. In the
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first tournament that I went to,
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there's usually at least 3 matches going on in the gym
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at the time, except for when Bonnie was wrestling.
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Everybody focused on Bonnie and who she was wrestling.
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And her whole goal was to just never
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get pinned. So, and she
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was wrestling against a guy, right? Uh-huh.
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She was the only woman or female. Yeah, yeah,
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yeah. And so how did that make you feel? Because I think it's one thing
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for her to be wrestling against— to get into
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wrestling, um, and maybe you feel a certain way about it, but it's against
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another girl. But here she is against a
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guy. I know, I know.
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It was good to me. I kind of tried to put it
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down as self-defense, you know,
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self-defense training. She,
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like, her goal was, was to never get pinned.
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That would obviously be helpful in
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life. Unfortunately, it possibly
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helped her a bit, but not You know, not— didn't keep her
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alive, unfortunately.
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Why did Bonnie never get her driver's license?
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Part of it, I think, was because of her friend who died
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in a car accident, actually down here in Florida.
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That may have been one of the issues. The other thing was that she was
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not really interested in learning how to drive.
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The family van. But she,
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she had— she was getting close to going and
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getting her license, but she never, she never got to that point.
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What was it about the family van that kind of deterred
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her from wanting to drive? Well, it's kind of a big
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vehicle to drive. Most of
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the Most of the time they would prefer a smaller
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car or something that's a little bit lower,
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but at least it wasn't a, an, a standard
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vehicle. It was automatic.
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Yeah, I was, uh, I was thinking that maybe it
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had to do with, um, you know, when you mentioned the family
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vehicle, that it was, you know, here's this minivan
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and it's not cool. For a 16-year-old to, to drive.
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Yeah, it probably wasn't very cool.
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Her brother took out my, um,
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what's the name, it was a Camaro, before he
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got his driver's license.
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I didn't have the Camaro anymore.
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Yeah. You know, after somebody dies,
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memories can sometimes become frozen around
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the age that they were when they died.
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Is Bonnie still 18 in your mind, or have
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you found yourself imagining the woman she
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would be today? I think she's
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18 in my mind, and in probably most of our
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minds. I can't imagine her as a 50-year-old.
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You know, it's amazing that when
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I think of her, yeah, I still see her as the
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18-year-old that she was.
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Absolutely. Do you ever— because
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it sounds like at least in,
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in some aspects, you and Bonnie were similar. You know, you talked
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about how you got into— was
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it woodworking and shop? Yeah, automotive.
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Automotive. Sorry. Yeah. And, and she got into wrestling. And so you,
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you kind of felt this kinship with with
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kind of pushing the envelope as a woman or
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a girl in high school. And I wonder,
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with those similarities, do you ever kind of look at yourself and
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be like, yeah, you know, Bonnie would probably look
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like me at 50, or she would look like me at 30,
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or she'd be doing this? It's funny you should ask that.
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People called her my Xerox copy.
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Okay. They thought that she looked
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very much like me and was very much like I
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was. I didn't see it. I never
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saw it. Now, when I look at her
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picture at 18, no, I don't think I looked like that
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at 18. In regards
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to personality, probably. Yeah,
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probably very similar. It's interesting how that happens,
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isn't it? My, um, my 2 brothers,
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Jake and Derek, um, everyone thinks that they look
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like a carbon copy of each other, but since they're my brothers, I'm like,
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I don't— I've never seen it, you know? And, and,
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and I wonder if— I've always wondered, at least for myself, like, it's probably
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just because I'm so close to it. You know, when you, when you see something
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so regularly,
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um, you can pick out, you know,
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the differences. It's like, you know, parents with twins.
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They're like, oh, I can see the difference. Right. Absolutely.
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Yeah. I, um, was often told I
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looked like my mom, and I never thought of it until
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now. When I look in the mirror, I think, oh, I look like my mom.
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Yes. And how do you feel about that? Oh, you know,
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it's all part of aging. Sure. Yeah.
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Yeah. Do you ever wonder what your
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relationship with Bonnie would have been like as
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adults? You know,
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I guess because I've always kept her as the 18-year-old,
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I really haven't.
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It would have been so nice to have seen her married
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and seen her have children. She had a wonderful boyfriend
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that I think it would have
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been really sweet to see them get married
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and have kids. But that's about to the extent
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of it that I would process in my mind.
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You know, I guess I don't No, now she's
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the 18-year-old angel, and she takes care of all of us,
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and she's there for us. You know, it's not
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a— it's not the adult,
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the angel. Can you talk more about that,
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the, the angel, Bonnie the angel, that, that takes care of
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you guys? Well, you know,
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it's, um, been very weird, all the different
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incidences that we've had over the years. But shortly
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after Bonnie
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was murdered, I remember walking
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up a hill with my grandson on my
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back, and it was a
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hike, and I realized, oh my gosh, the bears are out.
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And so I immediately thought, oh dear
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God, don't let anything happen to me. My kids have gone through enough.
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And of course, I was very protective over my grandson.
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So I returned back to my car rather
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than continuing the hike. A week later,
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I had a triple rollover at 70
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miles an hour and was
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out on the Seward Highway close
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to sewer. And I,
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um, I didn't get a scratch on me.
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I, I couldn't believe it that, you know,
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the, the car was totaled and,
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um, there was nothing wrong with me.
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And I had a driver
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that went by and he had pulled over and asked if he wanted
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to take pictures. He had one of those disposable cameras,
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and I thought, what the heck, what for? It's just for insurance
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purposes or something. And he took a picture, and there was a
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beam of light on both sides of me. Really?
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Wow. And my daughter Samantha
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called while I was basically
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being put into a C-collar And, um,
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one was checking in on me. It seemed like very often I
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felt like Bonnie was giving her messages.
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Call Mom. Okay. Yeah.
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And she called while I was, um,
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dealing with the car accident. We got to
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tell her that I was absolutely fine. Yeah.
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Yeah. I I have a
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situation where a really good friend of mine passed away
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when he was in his early 20s. And it was really,
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really hard on me. And,
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you know, grief is such a weird, complicated thing that
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you don't know how to navigate until you have to. Right.
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And I remember I had a dream.
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And it was, it was in total dream logic, you know,
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we're at my grandma's house for some reason, which my friend Sonny
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never went to. And, you know, so things don't make sense. But,
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but you have this feeling that, that it's them. And he's
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there. And we're in my grandma's kitchen.
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And I'm just like, you know, flabbergasted that
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he's in front of me. And I go over and I give him a hug.
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And in perfect, like, Sonny fashion, he like barely puts his arms around me and
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gives me this kind of, you know, half-assed hug.
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And which is so him. And,
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and then, you know, I'm sitting there trying to talk to him, ask him a
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bunch of questions. He's like, you know, I have a lot of people to get
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to tonight. You know, I love you, Cody. And then, and then I just,
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you know, I have this, like,
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this wave of kind of comfort and
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relief over me after that. And I always remember that. And after that dream,
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I felt like you know, it wasn't okay that
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he died, but at least I had found some, uh,
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some comfort in him being gone.
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Absolutely. You know, stories like that always put goosebumps on me.
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It's amazing how many stories like
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that happen all the time. I mean,
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when I— just after the murder, I felt like
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Bonnie was in the car with me anytime I got in the car, and there
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would always be certain song that would come on,
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and it was like unbelievable how often there
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was little messages that Bonnie's there.
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What song was it? It was the— a song
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that they played at her graduation,
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the Heroes song,
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which was an amazing song.
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Has your relationship with grief
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changed as you've gotten older?
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Oh, absolutely. You know,
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it's— people think of me as dealing with
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the ultimate grief, and You know,
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just yesterday my daughter Samantha,
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her dog died, and you know what,
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I basically let her know, you know,
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it's grief, and it's the same as
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what anybody is dealing with. If it's a kid or a dog
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or there's some kind of loss like that, it's just
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an incredible loss. So I
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think I understand grief a lot more
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now, and I think
22:23.296 --> 22:26.341
it's almost a help to know that,
22:27.731 --> 22:31.578
yes, my daughter's murder
22:31.627 --> 22:33.534
was a horrific tragedy,
22:34.864 --> 22:38.818
but it's whatever anybody is dealing
22:38.932 --> 22:42.559
with right now, is also
22:42.932 --> 22:44.051
horrific for them.
22:46.800 --> 22:50.024
So you can't measure the
22:50.639 --> 22:54.220
amount of grief by a child,
22:54.269 --> 22:57.582
or a dog, or a relationship,
22:57.888 --> 23:01.479
whatever. Grief is just so consuming.
23:02.379 --> 23:05.649
But it does, it gets easier.
23:06.726 --> 23:11.673
Not right away. It takes a long time before it
23:12.176 --> 23:13.247
gets easier.
23:15.660 --> 23:19.051
Mm-hmm. You know, Karen, I feel
23:19.163 --> 23:22.474
like Bonnie has been
23:22.974 --> 23:26.503
a part of my life since I was a kid. Right. I grew up
23:27.003 --> 23:31.106
on Muldoon, and I remember seeing all those Who
23:31.606 --> 23:34.805
Killed Bonnie posters. Uh-huh. And thinking
23:35.720 --> 23:39.042
about her surprisingly often for how young
23:39.154 --> 23:42.332
I was. Even asking my mom,
23:42.861 --> 23:46.183
who's Bonnie? And I bet for
23:46.215 --> 23:48.558
her, I guess I've never really asked her now that I think about it,
23:48.638 --> 23:52.361
but what was that like explaining
23:52.586 --> 23:56.164
not only death to me, but murder and
23:56.261 --> 24:00.562
then this girl that our community Anchorage
24:00.675 --> 24:04.002
cares about, and we want to find her.
24:04.597 --> 24:08.229
You know, I wonder, did you ever have a sense of
24:08.729 --> 24:13.001
how deeply Bonnie's story had entered the consciousness
24:14.238 --> 24:18.142
of the Anchorage community? I did,
24:18.239 --> 24:21.947
you know, and a lot of people let me know that,
24:22.044 --> 24:26.525
you know, their kids were they
24:27.025 --> 24:30.828
were hanging on to their kids a little tighter now, and that
24:30.845 --> 24:34.521
they were making sure that their kids understood what was
24:34.618 --> 24:39.098
going on, and that there was a killer out there. I could
24:39.130 --> 24:42.726
be out in a store, and a total stranger would
24:43.226 --> 24:45.279
walk up to me and hug me, and, you know,
24:46.130 --> 24:48.555
just let me know that they were there for me.
24:51.398 --> 24:56.562
I even had a—
24:57.028 --> 24:59.679
oh, what do you call those guys? The motorcycle gang.
25:00.750 --> 25:04.648
The Hells Angels? Hells Angels guy, yeah. Come up
25:05.148 --> 25:09.600
to me at a gas station. And, you know, I didn't have anything identifying
25:10.357 --> 25:13.627
me, but because I guess I was on the news,
25:13.723 --> 25:15.318
they knew my face.
25:17.120 --> 25:20.924
Um, told me that, that when
25:20.957 --> 25:25.005
that killer was found, if he wasn't convicted,
25:25.393 --> 25:28.645
they would take care of him. Really? Okay. You know,
25:28.807 --> 25:32.542
it's just incredible support
25:32.590 --> 25:34.707
all around. Yeah.
25:36.579 --> 25:38.273
How did you respond to that?
25:40.016 --> 25:43.504
Um, I don't even think at that point in time the guy
25:44.004 --> 25:47.755
was identified. So I didn't—
25:48.827 --> 25:50.548
I wouldn't want anybody killed.
25:53.961 --> 25:56.998
I don't believe in the death penalty,
25:57.337 --> 26:01.504
and I wouldn't have wanted the death penalty for Kenneth Deon,
26:01.617 --> 26:04.418
but I think it's good to have it there,
26:05.779 --> 26:08.678
so I would always vote for it.
26:10.298 --> 26:13.849
But Um, so that it is an option, but I, I don't
26:14.349 --> 26:17.035
really like going through that process.
26:18.573 --> 26:21.671
If you don't mind me asking, so you would
26:21.800 --> 26:25.466
vote for the death penalty, but you would not
26:25.596 --> 26:29.940
want it in Kenneth Dion's
26:30.037 --> 26:31.649
conviction. Why is that?
26:34.808 --> 26:38.234
I, I don't think we have the right to take somebody's life.
26:38.897 --> 26:42.727
I think we have the right to make sure that
26:43.401 --> 26:47.504
it can never happen again, and it's stop
26:47.552 --> 26:51.415
the behavior. So taking him out of the
26:51.896 --> 26:55.102
public is enough for me,
26:55.647 --> 26:59.173
and as long as he can never
26:59.734 --> 27:03.293
harm anybody else's child, I'm okay
27:03.357 --> 27:07.448
with that. Leaving it on the
27:09.033 --> 27:12.623
law books, we can certainly tell
27:13.625 --> 27:16.534
all of the criminals, you,
27:17.115 --> 27:20.630
you could get death for this.
27:21.871 --> 27:25.168
And I think it's, it's a bargaining chip. Okay.
27:26.400 --> 27:29.254
A hell of a bargaining chip. But, you know,
27:30.631 --> 27:34.673
and you know, when there's these mass murderers,
27:35.093 --> 27:39.229
you know, maybe it is justified.
27:43.457 --> 27:47.548
Did the city feel different to you after Bonnie's
27:48.048 --> 27:50.857
murder? Oh, absolutely.
27:52.486 --> 27:56.082
Yeah. Bonnie had been interested in going
27:56.292 --> 28:00.854
to Berkeley, and And I had said
28:00.903 --> 28:04.332
that Berkeley was kind of a rough town.
28:04.429 --> 28:08.068
I mean, we lived down in Walnut Creek area,
28:08.697 --> 28:12.194
and I had worked at a rape
28:12.258 --> 28:14.965
crisis center in Berkeley,
28:15.223 --> 28:18.703
and I— no, I was afraid of her
28:19.203 --> 28:21.958
going anywhere else. And then here,
28:22.409 --> 28:26.058
6 weeks into college, she's murdered.
28:28.010 --> 28:31.412
Um, and I just,
28:32.299 --> 28:35.522
you know, it was very difficult.
28:35.700 --> 28:39.324
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can't even
28:39.824 --> 28:43.028
imagine. Um, you know, before we
28:43.528 --> 28:46.567
go any further, I just, I want to thank you, Karen, for talking with me
28:46.583 --> 28:50.333
about all this stuff. I mean, I can't imagine how
28:51.750 --> 28:55.397
uh, difficult it was to go through, to sit
28:55.429 --> 28:58.525
with, to, you know, all of it. So thank you.
28:59.402 --> 29:03.387
Oh, you're, you're welcome. I appreciate us
29:03.564 --> 29:06.939
talking about it, and because I,
29:07.421 --> 29:11.238
I think it's really important that people understand
29:11.786 --> 29:15.429
the whole difference between collection of DNA
29:15.960 --> 29:19.349
on arrest or waiting till conviction.
29:20.569 --> 29:24.166
And I just did a documentary
29:24.182 --> 29:27.859
that will be airing probably this fall season on
29:27.907 --> 29:32.435
CBS. It's— and I'm
29:32.531 --> 29:36.047
hoping that more and more people will understand that
29:36.722 --> 29:40.929
difference and how much it means to the criminal
29:40.977 --> 29:45.595
justice system. Yeah, you eventually realized
29:45.611 --> 29:49.056
that if Kenneth Deon's DNA had been
29:49.152 --> 29:52.918
collected after one of his earlier arrests,
29:53.398 --> 29:56.699
Bonnie's murder might have been solved within months,
29:57.404 --> 30:02.020
if not weeks. Correct. How much did that realization
30:02.949 --> 30:07.147
fuel your decision to push for changes to Alaska's
30:07.259 --> 30:09.824
DNA collection laws? Oh,
30:09.985 --> 30:13.371
100%. You know, I— it
30:13.516 --> 30:19.224
was the article that came out May 1st in Anchorage
30:19.256 --> 30:23.176
Daily News where it put everything down in a timeline.
30:24.511 --> 30:28.567
And when I saw that he had been in jail 2 weeks
30:29.067 --> 30:35.501
before he murdered her, out on probation,
30:36.102 --> 30:39.912
and then back in jail I think about a month after
30:39.945 --> 30:40.930
he murdered her.
30:42.999 --> 30:45.553
And yet they had no clue who,
30:46.409 --> 30:49.544
who he was. They had the DNA from the
30:49.608 --> 30:53.562
killer, and if they had collected DNA,
30:54.028 --> 30:57.184
they absolutely would have got it within probably weeks.
30:58.136 --> 31:02.319
And instead, we waited 12
31:02.335 --> 31:06.249
years before he was finally identified. And even
31:06.525 --> 31:10.290
then, he was in prison
31:10.810 --> 31:15.080
in New Hampshire for armed
31:15.096 --> 31:18.440
robbery of a pharmacy. He had
31:18.504 --> 31:22.127
been in prison for 4 years, and they
31:22.627 --> 31:26.207
were about to release him when they took his DNA.
31:27.325 --> 31:31.072
And of course, when they put the DNA into CODIS,
31:31.354 --> 31:35.389
the a national database of DNA,
31:37.318 --> 31:41.560
he came up as the prime
31:41.998 --> 31:43.833
person in Bonnie's case.
31:47.160 --> 31:53.001
Mm-hmm. What was that like to put
31:53.501 --> 31:56.550
a name to someone you spent so many years looking for?
31:57.638 --> 31:59.928
And then when you see him, what was that like?
32:02.450 --> 32:06.146
Well, the strange thing
32:06.483 --> 32:08.798
is that once we identified him,
32:09.794 --> 32:14.108
it was even more difficult because my fear was
32:15.172 --> 32:18.685
all we have is DNA. What if he gets
32:18.733 --> 32:19.426
away with this?
32:22.896 --> 32:26.680
And there hadn't been a lot of cases where DNA
32:27.242 --> 32:31.026
proved things. And that's only a small part
32:31.526 --> 32:35.388
of the case. It's, it's a lot more detailed,
32:35.564 --> 32:38.595
and they need a lot more information.
32:38.932 --> 32:42.123
And being 12 years later, and by the time
32:43.342 --> 32:47.142
the, the case actually made it to the court, it was
32:47.511 --> 32:49.339
almost 17 years.
32:50.913 --> 32:54.172
So over all that time,
32:54.253 --> 32:57.849
you think of how much is forgotten, what witnesses
32:58.186 --> 33:01.895
aren't even alive anymore. Will they be able
33:02.395 --> 33:06.472
to find witnesses? What, what information is out
33:06.972 --> 33:10.373
there that we are going to need and
33:10.646 --> 33:12.348
not be able to get?
33:16.393 --> 33:20.484
Once you realize that collecting DNA from felony
33:20.516 --> 33:25.235
arrestees could prevent other families from waiting years
33:25.332 --> 33:28.715
for answers, you took the
33:28.731 --> 33:31.760
idea to Senator Hollis French,
33:32.662 --> 33:35.255
and within 12 days,
33:35.877 --> 33:39.105
a bill was passed. What did that
33:39.236 --> 33:43.224
tell you about how much influence an
33:43.498 --> 33:45.519
ordinary citizen can have?
33:46.651 --> 33:51.708
You know, it was incredibly
33:53.128 --> 33:56.953
satisfying that they acted so quickly.
33:57.953 --> 34:01.305
Initially, May 1st, when I started
34:01.402 --> 34:04.922
contacting all of the legislators,
34:05.678 --> 34:08.443
letting them know that we needed to pass the bill,
34:11.428 --> 34:16.056
It was, oh, you'll have to wait till next session, because we
34:16.588 --> 34:19.151
only have 16 days left in the session.
34:20.871 --> 34:25.533
So, it was a time crunch, and I just let
34:26.033 --> 34:27.737
them know, we can't wait another year.
34:28.433 --> 34:31.815
It's— so many murders will happen,
34:31.912 --> 34:35.153
so many rapes will happen, because we
34:35.218 --> 34:37.053
don't have this lawn place.
34:38.036 --> 34:41.208
And it— they listened,
34:41.900 --> 34:45.829
and they made it work, and it was a bipartisan thing.
34:46.731 --> 34:50.693
All— everybody came together. In fact, it was a
34:50.773 --> 34:54.326
bill that— oh, and I can't remember
34:54.360 --> 34:55.089
his name.
34:58.658 --> 35:01.995
He had He was in the
35:02.011 --> 35:05.817
minority, and he basically
35:06.317 --> 35:09.654
said, just tell them to take this bill and
35:09.799 --> 35:12.705
add it to whatever bills they want,
35:13.572 --> 35:16.960
and we'll do— we'll get it passed.
35:17.441 --> 35:21.102
And that's what was done, was they added that bill to an
35:21.439 --> 35:25.453
omnibus crime bill and got it passed
35:25.953 --> 35:27.586
within the 14 days.
35:30.356 --> 35:33.487
It was unbelievable. I mean, yeah, justice doesn't
35:33.987 --> 35:37.720
usually happen that fast. Yeah. What do they say?
35:37.880 --> 35:41.336
The wheels of justice are, are slow or
35:41.577 --> 35:44.518
churning or— Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Something like that.
35:44.760 --> 35:45.489
Very slow.
37:08.175 --> 37:12.004
You know, there's this powerful moment in the book when
37:12.181 --> 37:15.305
you finally see the crime scene video
37:15.723 --> 37:18.981
that had been thought lost for years.
37:20.361 --> 37:23.860
You'd spent so much time believing the
37:23.973 --> 37:27.086
Alaska State Troopers had mishandled the scene and
37:27.199 --> 37:31.500
possibly missed evidence. But watching
37:31.516 --> 37:35.352
the footage, you realized they had actually
37:35.384 --> 37:38.835
conducted a careful and thorough
37:39.335 --> 37:42.495
investigation. You described feeling an
37:42.607 --> 37:45.911
unexpected sense of relief. And even healing.
37:47.940 --> 37:52.368
What was it like to finally know that Bonnie had
37:52.868 --> 37:55.701
been given that care and dignity from the very beginning?
37:57.617 --> 38:00.461
You know, all the time,
38:01.473 --> 38:05.314
I really felt like I would be going after the Alaska State Troopers
38:05.748 --> 38:09.224
and suing them for negligence and everything.
38:09.775 --> 38:13.282
I sat there in that courtroom And I was
38:13.379 --> 38:16.673
in awe, tears streaming
38:16.705 --> 38:20.450
down my cheek, thinking, oh my gosh, look at all
38:20.644 --> 38:24.556
they did. And they've never shared any of this
38:24.685 --> 38:28.613
with, with me. I had no idea they
38:29.113 --> 38:33.369
had troopers crawling on the ground looking for any
38:33.402 --> 38:36.845
kind of blood, any kind of evidence along the trail
38:36.959 --> 38:40.686
that she had ran on. They were in the water.
38:40.847 --> 38:44.500
They had scuba divers looking for weapons,
38:44.677 --> 38:46.936
looking for any kind of evidence,
38:48.138 --> 38:51.952
trying to figure out where she would have gone
38:52.064 --> 38:56.839
over into the creek and
38:57.736 --> 39:00.284
why her body ended up where it was,
39:00.957 --> 39:04.487
and whether or not it was, um, the the flow
39:04.552 --> 39:07.920
of the water, and it was so
39:07.952 --> 39:11.532
unbelievable. I watched it,
39:11.999 --> 39:16.156
and it was just amazing to me how
39:17.172 --> 39:21.054
much care was taken, and how much care
39:21.554 --> 39:25.351
was taken with her body. Even, you know, for a mother
39:25.851 --> 39:30.112
to watch troopers putting their daughter's body
39:30.209 --> 39:31.527
in a body bag,
39:34.067 --> 39:37.410
it was done, as you said, with dignity and
39:37.780 --> 39:41.803
so much care. When the trooper got
39:42.303 --> 39:45.881
off the stand and walked out of the courtroom, I did—
39:46.106 --> 39:49.328
I walked out behind him and just gave him a hug.
39:50.520 --> 39:54.226
And I found out later that he was just
39:54.726 --> 39:58.811
so nervous about having this video playing
39:59.327 --> 40:01.938
in the courtroom, uh,
40:02.454 --> 40:05.194
you know, thinking what we would be going through.
40:06.690 --> 40:10.112
But it was like the weight of the world was off my shoulder
40:10.241 --> 40:13.873
now, and I felt so much more confident
40:14.373 --> 40:17.828
that we were going to win this trial. Mm-hmm.
40:18.365 --> 40:21.312
Yeah, that reminded me when I read that,
40:21.947 --> 40:26.103
um, how everybody
40:28.378 --> 40:32.154
was in your corner, whether it was Anchorage
40:32.493 --> 40:36.196
and you encountering people at the grocery store giving you a hug,
40:36.518 --> 40:39.898
or that story you told about the Hells
40:40.398 --> 40:44.183
Angels biker. And, you know, you're thinking like,
40:44.911 --> 40:48.452
why aren't these police kind of
40:48.484 --> 40:51.487
doing their job? And then you find out you know,
40:51.633 --> 40:55.223
once again that people are in your corner,
40:55.547 --> 40:57.107
people are on your side. I wonder,
40:58.861 --> 41:02.127
did that reinforce your idea
41:02.757 --> 41:06.313
of people and the world, or did it,
41:06.943 --> 41:09.488
uh, you know, make you see it in a new light?
41:11.093 --> 41:17.358
I absolutely saw it in a new light. You know, I was convinced
41:17.858 --> 41:21.851
that Okay, a lot of it was because initially
41:22.675 --> 41:26.473
I was told that Bonnie died in a hiking accident.
41:28.576 --> 41:33.524
And I was a reporter for quite
41:34.024 --> 41:36.316
some time, and I sat through many trials.
41:36.832 --> 41:40.582
And it was when
41:40.615 --> 41:44.446
I heard that, and I knew that Bonnie would
41:44.478 --> 41:47.597
not have been out there at 2 in the afternoon. She would have been at
41:48.983 --> 41:50.216
at school. She had classes.
41:52.648 --> 41:56.787
She wouldn't have been out there without somebody else because she
41:57.287 --> 42:00.909
didn't drive. And she wouldn't have been out there with no ID
42:01.152 --> 42:04.826
and nothing on her. She would have had keys or something.
42:05.502 --> 42:09.123
And there was— she had nothing to identify her other than her
42:09.623 --> 42:13.851
class ring. And so
42:14.032 --> 42:16.668
I knew at that point,
42:17.455 --> 42:21.325
from day one of being notified, no,
42:21.566 --> 42:25.419
it's got to be murder. So my confidence
42:25.483 --> 42:29.337
was shattered, thinking, oh no, they think
42:29.353 --> 42:31.858
it's only a hiking accident.
42:32.629 --> 42:36.129
And I was so afraid that they weren't treating it
42:36.884 --> 42:40.728
as a murder and, and just treated it as
42:41.168 --> 42:41.999
an accident.
42:44.284 --> 42:48.487
So all that fear was gone once I
42:48.519 --> 42:51.773
saw how much they did. And,
42:52.224 --> 42:55.367
you know, um, you know,
42:56.559 --> 42:59.476
the Alaska State Troopers did an excellent job.
43:02.710 --> 43:06.637
At this same time that all
43:06.685 --> 43:10.329
this was going on, you were working as a
43:10.458 --> 43:14.118
volunteer undercover officer, correct? Right. I was working
43:14.231 --> 43:16.639
as a reserve police officer.
43:17.522 --> 43:21.681
A reserve police officer. How much did that experience
43:22.181 --> 43:26.706
shape the way you approached her case and your
43:27.541 --> 43:30.832
determination to conduct
43:31.332 --> 43:34.670
your own investigation? You know, it,
43:36.212 --> 43:40.562
it made me feel incredibly guilty
43:40.754 --> 43:45.186
that maybe the person that killed Bonnie was
43:45.686 --> 43:48.860
really after me. After all, we called her my
43:48.973 --> 43:53.078
Xerox copy. Mm-hmm. And the address
43:53.578 --> 43:57.151
that would have been on file at the police department was where Bonnie
43:57.183 --> 43:58.535
was living at the time.
43:59.867 --> 44:03.338
So I felt like
44:04.205 --> 44:08.483
there could be somebody who was after
44:08.983 --> 44:14.663
me that mistakenly
44:14.857 --> 44:18.549
thought Bonnie was me. And that
44:18.727 --> 44:21.334
they really just messed up.
44:22.868 --> 44:26.237
And of course, after the murder too,
44:26.597 --> 44:31.312
I I feel like I abandoned my surviving
44:31.505 --> 44:34.725
kids and just focused on finding a
44:35.225 --> 44:38.492
killer. I would
44:38.992 --> 44:42.897
drive around looking for vehicles that were given descriptions
44:42.994 --> 44:47.496
in the newspaper. I would go
44:47.996 --> 44:51.533
to the university and drive around, and go out
44:52.033 --> 44:55.727
to McHugh Creek, and try to figure out what
44:56.227 --> 44:58.513
could have happened. And it was, um,
45:00.139 --> 45:04.627
it was a little obsessive. And certainly the
45:05.110 --> 45:09.877
Alaska State Troopers didn't appreciate me
45:10.666 --> 45:13.982
getting involved and looking around, but I felt like I needed to
45:14.482 --> 45:17.823
find out what happened. Yeah, yeah,
45:19.033 --> 45:22.450
yeah. Do you think that that persistence
45:22.950 --> 45:26.016
was already part of your personality,
45:26.306 --> 45:30.597
or did Bonnie's murder case create
45:31.097 --> 45:34.231
it in you? Um,
45:35.134 --> 45:39.200
you know, that's a good question. I, I don't think I'm that persistent about a
45:39.700 --> 45:42.620
lot of things. Okay, okay. So, um,
45:43.701 --> 45:45.746
I guess it was just the priority.
45:47.120 --> 45:50.509
To me, when they didn't have somebody
45:50.590 --> 45:53.833
after a week, I thought, oh my gosh, we should have somebody
45:54.333 --> 45:57.993
by now. And then it was, you know,
45:59.310 --> 46:01.877
the end of November. And then it was,
46:02.592 --> 46:05.692
well, maybe at Christmas time, when people are partying,
46:05.740 --> 46:10.496
somebody will get drunk and somebody will talk, or somehow information
46:10.624 --> 46:15.558
will come out. And So I kept setting
46:16.105 --> 46:19.261
deadlines thinking, oh, we should know by then, you know,
46:19.342 --> 46:22.902
we should know by— and all those deadlines passed.
46:26.317 --> 46:27.315
It was, it was tough.
46:30.350 --> 46:33.611
Mm-hmm. How long did you
46:33.660 --> 46:39.504
live with the idea that Bonnie
46:39.568 --> 46:44.065
was murdered possibly by someone who
46:44.081 --> 46:47.563
was out to get you because of the
46:47.853 --> 46:51.402
undercover work that you were doing at the time, or the, the reserve police work
46:51.418 --> 46:55.451
that you were doing? Yeah, um, probably right
46:55.951 --> 46:58.484
until he was identified. That's a long time.
46:59.390 --> 47:01.604
12 years. Yeah.
47:03.527 --> 47:06.891
Did you have any scenarios that just
47:06.940 --> 47:10.810
kept replaying because, you know, I guess I'm
47:10.859 --> 47:14.429
interested in this because we
47:14.929 --> 47:18.499
so often can be our own worst enemies,
47:19.080 --> 47:22.811
you know, when we're faced with confusion,
47:24.690 --> 47:28.916
guilt, grief, you know, what could we have done different,
47:29.563 --> 47:33.045
even if nothing could have been done different?
47:33.530 --> 47:37.568
You know? Right. Well, the thing
47:37.665 --> 47:39.774
was, is that just before,
47:41.450 --> 47:44.856
in August, we did a— it
47:45.356 --> 47:49.877
was 5-agency arrests
47:50.248 --> 47:56.869
and bust of a bunch of the drug
47:57.497 --> 47:59.562
people in Anchorage.
48:00.870 --> 48:04.552
And I had been the by-officer in all
48:04.665 --> 48:07.534
these cases. And of course,
48:08.475 --> 48:12.011
because I was the by-officer, my name was in
48:13.406 --> 48:17.426
the arrest reports and
48:20.346 --> 48:23.878
in the case again and again.
48:25.001 --> 48:29.344
And so there was 5
48:29.377 --> 48:33.925
arrests. They were released a
48:33.990 --> 48:36.852
couple of days before Bonnie was murdered.
48:38.890 --> 48:42.780
So because of the coincidence of them being
48:42.894 --> 48:46.133
released, I mean, they were still going to be going
48:46.166 --> 48:49.931
to trial, but they were, they were
48:50.431 --> 48:54.449
no longer in jail. I just
48:54.594 --> 48:58.868
felt like, oh no, this absolutely must
48:59.368 --> 49:03.342
be the issue. They were going after
49:03.374 --> 49:03.650
me.
49:10.480 --> 49:13.406
It had nothing to do with that case.
49:15.210 --> 49:18.654
Mm-hmm. Yeah. We become our own worst enemies.
49:19.393 --> 49:22.235
Yeah. And the truth is, is, yeah,
49:23.166 --> 49:26.875
I didn't have a mask on, or, you know, I— the
49:27.116 --> 49:31.002
people that I bought from, they saw my face.
49:31.130 --> 49:34.679
But when I— when we were doing the arrests, I had a mask
49:34.727 --> 49:38.372
over everything but my eyes, so they couldn't
49:38.872 --> 49:43.465
see who was identifying them. They could
49:43.497 --> 49:47.689
see the size of me, and— but,
49:48.463 --> 49:51.624
you know, chances are they had no idea what I looked like.
49:56.659 --> 49:59.020
Earlier you said that, um,
50:00.459 --> 50:05.295
Bonnie's murder affected how you parented
50:05.795 --> 50:07.663
your other children, you know, how present you were.
50:09.495 --> 50:13.600
Was there anything your children remembered
50:13.714 --> 50:17.242
differently from the way you
50:17.258 --> 50:20.020
remembered it during that time? Oh,
50:20.085 --> 50:23.152
absolutely. You know, the children,
50:23.829 --> 50:26.857
um, were 20,
50:28.725 --> 50:30.158
13, and 12,
50:31.785 --> 50:35.711
and It was very
50:35.824 --> 50:40.091
devastating for them. I am just
50:40.268 --> 50:43.683
so incredibly proud about all of
50:43.958 --> 50:47.353
them and their accomplishments
50:47.579 --> 50:51.475
and how they survived such
50:51.540 --> 50:55.782
a horrific tragedy in their life at such a young age.
50:58.971 --> 51:03.139
They, they're amazing kids. And you know what, I think they're
51:04.365 --> 51:07.829
They can absolutely credit a
51:07.845 --> 51:09.188
bunch of it to Bonnie.
51:12.990 --> 51:16.293
Their Angel Bonnie. Yeah,
51:16.312 --> 51:16.768
I like that.
51:20.818 --> 51:26.461
The way you describe the investigation, once police
51:26.961 --> 51:30.427
began keeping you informed, Sorry if I'm kind of skipping around.
51:31.046 --> 51:35.706
Oh, no, that's okay. You know, once the police began
51:35.738 --> 51:38.527
keeping you informed of developments in the case,
51:39.946 --> 51:44.039
it's full of false leads, promising suspects, and moments
51:44.104 --> 51:48.062
when it seemed like you might finally be getting somewhere,
51:48.930 --> 51:50.856
only for the case to stall again.
51:52.815 --> 51:57.942
What did that cycle of hope and
51:58.282 --> 52:01.421
disappointment do to you over the years?
52:04.397 --> 52:07.997
You know, I think that
52:08.816 --> 52:12.175
as you go through it, you get a little
52:12.207 --> 52:15.069
bit of a sense of relief, like, really?
52:15.504 --> 52:16.871
And actually,
52:19.765 --> 52:23.752
most of the time it was more
52:23.960 --> 52:27.748
of a— they would tell me at
52:27.796 --> 52:31.664
the same time, this is what we looked into, and it didn't work,
52:32.611 --> 52:35.852
and it didn't become something. But there was a
52:35.917 --> 52:39.800
couple of times where I would have so many people
52:39.913 --> 52:43.331
contacting me and telling me that they thought
52:43.459 --> 52:47.440
it was this person, they thought it was this person, and I would go to
52:47.632 --> 52:51.670
the Alaska State Troopers and give them all the information.
52:52.824 --> 52:56.638
And I would hope that it would become something,
52:56.830 --> 53:00.580
and it never did, obviously. So those
53:00.772 --> 53:04.826
were ups and downs where I'm thinking
53:05.243 --> 53:08.769
this could be something, and it's not.
53:10.067 --> 53:15.025
But the bus driver that they suspected Um,
53:16.607 --> 53:20.628
I, I can't remember for sure, but I think they told me
53:21.128 --> 53:23.889
about the bus driver once he was no longer,
53:25.212 --> 53:28.535
uh, considered a possibility.
53:30.535 --> 53:34.293
Yeah, that part was interesting to me too, where,
53:35.050 --> 53:40.088
uh, that bus driver is initially described
53:40.266 --> 53:42.915
as having a DNA match.
53:43.675 --> 53:47.229
Yes. What happened there? How can there be a
53:47.729 --> 53:51.532
DNA match and then they're like, never mind, it wasn't a DNA match?
53:52.822 --> 53:57.620
Right. This is all part of the whole process
53:57.831 --> 54:00.814
of DNA. Initially,
54:01.333 --> 54:04.657
DNA, they had, I think
54:05.157 --> 54:08.901
it was 12 markers, 12 alleles that
54:09.014 --> 54:13.492
they had. And it wasn't
54:13.508 --> 54:16.974
1/10 of what they can do now with
54:17.119 --> 54:21.260
DNA. You know, the— it's incredible
54:21.837 --> 54:25.673
how many advances they've done with DNA that
54:25.769 --> 54:29.525
they can eliminate a lot. 1994, it was
54:29.782 --> 54:34.005
just starting. And it was a
54:34.135 --> 54:36.189
lot less accurate than it is now.
54:39.530 --> 54:43.806
So yeah, the more and more advances
54:43.838 --> 54:47.744
that they make, and you know, it's a lot faster now too.
54:48.502 --> 54:52.073
Used to take quite a bit of time to get results from
54:52.236 --> 54:55.387
DNA. Now they can get it within hours.
54:56.780 --> 55:00.594
Mm-hmm. At one
55:00.706 --> 55:05.663
point in the book, you say that the
55:05.776 --> 55:09.128
justice system is not about fairness or truth,
55:10.556 --> 55:14.237
it's a game. What did you mean by that?
55:16.537 --> 55:20.434
Very often there's truths that
55:20.901 --> 55:24.574
are not even privy to the
55:25.074 --> 55:26.519
jury. The jury doesn't get to hear it.
55:28.729 --> 55:32.401
A lot of times, there's complications because of
55:32.934 --> 55:37.075
maybe how things were handled by law
55:37.140 --> 55:41.129
enforcement or something, or that it's hearsay.
55:42.930 --> 55:46.548
So there's so many things that the jury don't
55:46.567 --> 55:50.242
get because of our justice system that
55:50.613 --> 55:54.238
sometimes they don't get
55:54.367 --> 55:55.205
all of the truth.
55:57.618 --> 56:00.110
And there's reasons for it, but still,
56:02.715 --> 56:04.802
a lot is withheld from the jury.
56:06.458 --> 56:12.043
And you just never know what's
56:12.543 --> 56:16.685
going to be withheld in any trial. And, you know,
56:16.909 --> 56:20.341
it's— it doesn't necessarily
56:20.389 --> 56:23.196
mean that it's going to be fair either.
56:24.126 --> 56:27.879
And I got to tell you, through the whole process,
56:29.194 --> 56:33.364
I never really believed that
56:33.749 --> 56:37.389
we're going to get this guy, and he's going to be convicted.
56:37.839 --> 56:41.704
And I can't tell you how proud I am of the prosecutor
56:42.204 --> 56:44.863
and their team, and all that was done.
56:45.817 --> 56:50.763
To make sure that we got a conviction and
56:50.909 --> 56:53.816
that justice was served.
56:54.444 --> 56:57.408
It— but, you know,
56:59.034 --> 57:02.972
and again, I was a reporter, and I
57:03.150 --> 57:06.957
had been in on cases where the
57:07.118 --> 57:10.619
perpetrator got away with it, or it was a mistrial,
57:10.910 --> 57:15.397
and it was just so awful.
57:15.735 --> 57:19.905
And so I didn't have a lot of faith that
57:20.098 --> 57:21.917
we would definitely get a conviction.
57:24.501 --> 57:29.005
And it was really tough when here he was identified,
57:29.264 --> 57:34.609
and the case was delayed,
57:34.871 --> 57:37.386
and it was 5 years before we finally got to court.
57:39.500 --> 57:41.984
So it's— it is a game,
57:44.845 --> 57:48.342
and you got to make sure that you've got the
57:48.842 --> 57:49.953
right people on your side.
57:52.180 --> 57:56.613
Mm-hmm. In the book, you describe
57:58.274 --> 58:01.600
watching Kenneth Deon in court and,
58:02.498 --> 58:06.964
you know, his facial expressions and all
58:07.077 --> 58:09.302
of that, you know, here is this,
58:12.240 --> 58:16.999
here is this person in the flesh who did something so incredibly
58:17.079 --> 58:20.128
awful to you, to your family,
58:20.950 --> 58:21.499
to your daughter.
58:24.961 --> 58:27.426
What's, what's that like, if you don't mind me asking?
58:30.544 --> 58:33.916
You know, I guess part of me always wanted
58:35.002 --> 58:38.532
him to allocute and tell why, what happened.
58:39.368 --> 58:43.273
But to this day, he has
58:43.965 --> 58:46.908
denied having anything to do with it.
58:47.501 --> 58:50.433
He's always said he didn't do it.
58:53.858 --> 58:57.643
I guess it just is beyond me to
58:57.739 --> 59:01.264
understand how anybody could hurt
59:01.602 --> 59:02.809
anyone like that.
59:05.570 --> 59:11.082
And I just— it's
59:11.582 --> 59:16.383
just, oh, so awful to think of why.
59:17.231 --> 59:18.340
Why would he do that?
59:24.302 --> 59:27.780
Has this taught you anything about the
59:27.845 --> 59:32.961
way people understand and sometimes
59:33.461 --> 59:36.566
struggle to interact with someone who's grieving?
59:38.520 --> 59:41.220
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
59:41.429 --> 59:44.982
Um, I see
59:45.482 --> 59:49.453
it every day in people not
59:49.953 --> 59:53.480
really understanding that
59:54.613 --> 59:57.202
we're not taught how to deal with grief.
59:57.572 --> 01:00:00.242
We're not, you know,
01:00:00.724 --> 01:00:04.889
people give these horrible lines
01:00:05.391 --> 01:00:10.017
that just are absolutely
01:00:10.405 --> 01:00:16.627
awful for the surviving people.
01:00:16.934 --> 01:00:20.655
And people don't understand that there's so many lines that you
01:00:21.155 --> 01:00:24.666
should not be saying to someone who has lost someone.
01:00:24.974 --> 01:00:29.347
It would be better just to give them a hug than
01:00:29.443 --> 01:00:33.235
to say some of the lines that, you know, oh well, now at
01:00:33.735 --> 01:00:40.203
least now he's in heaven, or at least now they're
01:00:40.301 --> 01:00:43.377
done with their suffering, or, you know,
01:00:44.592 --> 01:00:50.573
there's so many lines, and I can't think of them right now, but I've
01:00:50.653 --> 01:00:53.769
had a lot of different people who have lost people,
01:00:54.124 --> 01:00:57.140
and we talk about that,
01:00:57.414 --> 01:00:58.429
and it's,
01:01:01.617 --> 01:01:05.289
it's difficult for people who are going through grief
01:01:07.775 --> 01:01:11.083
the way so many people expect that, oh, oh,
01:01:11.116 --> 01:01:13.646
it's gonna get easier. No, it doesn't get easier.
01:01:15.245 --> 01:01:18.406
It takes a long time. Um,
01:01:19.508 --> 01:01:22.601
or they expect that after months, oh,
01:01:22.778 --> 01:01:25.630
move on. You can't.
01:01:26.499 --> 01:01:29.963
Life has changed forever. There's always going to be
01:01:30.463 --> 01:01:34.599
a hole in their heart. In this
01:01:34.648 --> 01:01:36.145
group of,
01:01:38.511 --> 01:01:42.536
of other people, other families that have lost people
01:01:43.036 --> 01:01:46.177
in their lives, I wonder if you
01:01:46.677 --> 01:01:50.545
can share with me any, anything that they have
01:01:50.982 --> 01:01:56.027
taught you or anything that you've learned that has helped you throughout
01:01:56.076 --> 01:01:57.703
this grief. And this loss?
01:02:01.100 --> 01:02:05.220
You know, I think the most important thing that you learn is to
01:02:05.252 --> 01:02:09.387
be kind, to make
01:02:09.887 --> 01:02:13.592
sure that you let the people you
01:02:13.737 --> 01:02:16.092
love know that you love them,
01:02:17.764 --> 01:02:21.190
and to— I mean,
01:02:21.839 --> 01:02:25.295
there's people that I can't leave without letting
01:02:25.311 --> 01:02:28.836
them know. I don't get off the phone without letting them know I love
01:02:28.933 --> 01:02:29.110
you.
01:02:33.292 --> 01:02:36.244
And maybe, you know,
01:02:36.341 --> 01:02:39.923
it's, it's not worth harsh words over silly things.
01:02:42.718 --> 01:02:46.448
And to live every day like it could be your last.
01:02:48.555 --> 01:02:52.179
And that the person that's walking away and
01:02:52.679 --> 01:02:55.238
saying goodbye right now, you may never see them again.
01:02:58.330 --> 01:03:03.081
Those are the things that I think many
01:03:03.177 --> 01:03:07.026
of us learn when, um, we have
01:03:07.139 --> 01:03:09.016
to deal with incredible tragedies.
01:03:13.974 --> 01:03:17.678
What does that look like for you, living every
01:03:17.710 --> 01:03:18.945
day like it's your last?
01:03:22.740 --> 01:03:26.307
Well, I don't think I live every day like
01:03:26.807 --> 01:03:30.067
it's my last. I make sure I enjoy my life.
01:03:31.309 --> 01:03:34.810
I make sure that life
01:03:35.310 --> 01:03:38.214
is good. And that's not to say I'm not going to have a bad day.
01:03:38.568 --> 01:03:41.778
I can have a bad day. But I make sure that
01:03:42.278 --> 01:03:44.409
the next day I'm going to make sure it's a good day.
01:03:46.910 --> 01:03:50.682
And it makes
01:03:51.117 --> 01:03:53.809
a lot of problems a lot smaller.
01:03:57.987 --> 01:04:01.335
You know, when you've dealt with incredible tragedies,
01:04:01.770 --> 01:04:05.762
there's really not a lot of other stuff that
01:04:06.262 --> 01:04:09.345
is big anymore. I mean, if you have a,
01:04:11.160 --> 01:04:14.390
a car accident, it's like, if everybody's good,
01:04:15.052 --> 01:04:18.363
I'm good. So what if the car's all
01:04:18.863 --> 01:04:22.201
crashed up? We're good. We're alive.
01:04:22.945 --> 01:04:26.342
Yeah. Um, there's so much more that
01:04:26.989 --> 01:04:30.190
you don't get angry about. It's just stuff.
01:04:32.695 --> 01:04:34.719
Mm-hmm. You can deal with it.
01:04:37.403 --> 01:04:39.106
That also seems like,
01:04:41.313 --> 01:04:44.088
I don't know, maybe Bonnie watching over you. Oh,
01:04:44.217 --> 01:04:45.040
absolutely.
01:04:48.268 --> 01:04:52.431
Yeah. I have a magnet
01:04:52.528 --> 01:04:56.915
on my fridge and it's the saying, the caterpillar
01:04:57.415 --> 01:05:00.956
thought life was over And then it turned into a butterfly.
01:05:02.876 --> 01:05:03.311
I like that.
01:05:07.568 --> 01:05:09.162
Yeah. Yeah. It's, um,
01:05:09.517 --> 01:05:14.092
yeah, you can move
01:05:14.592 --> 01:05:18.068
on and enjoy life, enjoy the people
01:05:18.568 --> 01:05:22.144
around you, and maybe not
01:05:23.875 --> 01:05:26.268
be as harsh and divisive as,
01:05:27.418 --> 01:05:28.179
as you were.
01:05:31.710 --> 01:05:35.617
And I don't know, I, I don't judge
01:05:36.117 --> 01:05:38.163
a lot of people. Everybody has flaws, right?
01:05:42.930 --> 01:05:46.612
When you look back at the mom
01:05:46.725 --> 01:05:50.183
you were before Bonnie was killed and
01:05:50.199 --> 01:05:53.533
the person you were really before Bonnie was
01:05:53.582 --> 01:05:56.929
killed. How much do you recognize that
01:06:01.186 --> 01:06:04.982
Hmm. You know, I think
01:06:06.097 --> 01:06:08.829
everybody becomes forever changed.
01:06:09.429 --> 01:06:13.288
There's no going back. You'll never
01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:14.504
be that person again.
01:06:18.082 --> 01:06:21.711
It's like you start over as a blank slate,
01:06:22.943 --> 01:06:25.371
and you have to recreate yourself.
01:06:27.700 --> 01:06:31.726
Because you do, when you have a horrific tragedy,
01:06:34.443 --> 01:06:37.962
your mind just goes blank, and there's so much
01:06:38.156 --> 01:06:41.449
that you have to reconfigure.
01:06:44.848 --> 01:06:48.523
How did you go about recreating yourself?
01:06:49.122 --> 01:06:53.153
Was it intentional? Was it—
01:06:53.169 --> 01:06:56.116
did it just happen? And then after it happened,
01:06:57.560 --> 01:07:01.039
was there a moment you looked back and you kind of
01:07:01.539 --> 01:07:04.792
acknowledged that, oh, I've totally recreated myself?
01:07:10.309 --> 01:07:12.123
Um, yeah, I,
01:07:14.035 --> 01:07:17.695
I did because I decided
01:07:17.728 --> 01:07:21.268
that I needed to do something about
01:07:21.704 --> 01:07:25.707
Bonnie's murder, and I wanted there to be a legacy
01:07:26.288 --> 01:07:29.800
for Bonnie. You know, she lost
01:07:29.849 --> 01:07:34.456
her life, and there's got to be a positive.
01:07:34.763 --> 01:07:37.319
You've got to build positives around it.
01:07:39.034 --> 01:07:42.900
I guess it— I became a
01:07:43.400 --> 01:07:47.888
grassroots lobbyist, which was never anything that
01:07:48.388 --> 01:07:49.176
I ever thought I would be doing,
01:07:51.420 --> 01:07:55.249
pushing for legislation to protect the kids.
01:08:00.012 --> 01:08:03.744
So after the investigation, the campaigning,
01:08:04.742 --> 01:08:08.379
the legislation, the trial, the book, and now
01:08:09.494 --> 01:08:13.339
a documentary, what part of Bonnie
01:08:14.907 --> 01:08:17.056
belongs only to you and your family?
01:08:19.202 --> 01:08:22.332
Oh, all the memories and her smiling face.
01:08:25.374 --> 01:08:27.304
And that she's with us daily,
01:08:29.282 --> 01:08:30.255
protecting us.
01:08:35.663 --> 01:08:38.220
The strength that we've all gained from her.
01:08:43.440 --> 01:08:46.998
Well, Karen, those are all the questions I have for you.
01:08:47.803 --> 01:08:52.925
I want to thank you for your time, And for
01:08:53.425 --> 01:08:57.036
talking with me about Bonnie. You know, I asked a
01:08:57.536 --> 01:08:58.950
lot of hard questions, and I,
01:09:00.809 --> 01:09:04.348
I really appreciate this conversation. I,
01:09:04.623 --> 01:09:08.003
I appreciate you giving me the opportunity.
01:09:09.717 --> 01:09:13.356
I, um, and I liked your questions, and I think you're a
01:09:13.856 --> 01:09:17.264
very wonderful person. Thank you. I really appreciate that, Karen.
01:09:18.082 --> 01:09:20.684
Yeah, I am very kind.
01:09:43.060 --> 01:09:47.447
For more information about the Anchorage Museum, visit anchoragemuseum.org.
01:09:50.577 --> 01:09:54.059
This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum,
01:09:55.091 --> 01:09:56.993
with additional help from Julie Decker.
01:10:01.150 --> 01:10:03.711
Chattermarks music is produced by Keys Open Doors.