This month, I reviewed a true crime novel, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier by Robin Barefield. Barefield is an Alaskan wilderness mystery writer. She has a master’s degree in fish and wildlife biology and is also a wildlife-viewing and fishing guide. She lives on Kodiak Island in Alaska where she and her husband, photographer Mike Munsey, own a remote lodge.
She has shared some of the true crime stories from her newsletter and podcast in This Awful Awesome Life. I’ve reviewed several of her fiction and non-fiction novels. Barefield is a self-described storyteller instead of a journalist. This matters because it shapes her approach to relaying the facts of a true crime story.
In Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier, she groups the crimes by cities/regions in Alaska along with a brief description and history of each area. I found this enormously helpful and interesting.
Barefield has compiled a selection of true crimes from major cities in Alaska and remote areas. Men, women, and children are the victims and sometimes the perpetrators. She has included the incredibly popular mystery of the fatal plane crash of Congressmen Hale Boggs and Nick Begich. Was it a terrible accident or was one of the congressman on board targeted for assassination? Investigators and true crime buffs have been spinning theories since 1972 and seem no closer to finding out what really happened.
If a mystery is unsolved, police tend to withhold important details from the public which makes it harder for a writer to tell the story. Often, Barefield must research more than the particular details of the story. She delves into the history of the particular area in Alaska and uses applicable crime statistics to help the reader understand why this particular crime could happen and why it is so difficult to solve.
I was thrilled Barefield agreed to share with us how she chooses the stories she covers. If you missed her article in this issue, you should scroll back and read it.
Alaska is an area unlike any other in the United States because of its size, remoteness, population distribution, wilderness areas, weather, and history. These factors contribute to the difficulty law enforcement officers have when they investigate a crime. It can often take several days to reach a crime scene once a crime has been reported, because Alaska is larger than the next three biggest states (Texas, California, and Montana) combined. Though it only has a population of about 1.26 people per square mile, most of the population is concentrated in its three largest cities, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.
There are only 300 commissioned Alaska State Troopers to assist local police departments and cover 663,268 square miles of land (approximately the size of 1/5 of the continental United States).
That’s one state trooper per million acres of land and a lot of places for criminals to hide. Not all towns have their own police departments, easy access to/from airports, or even paved roads which makes it harder for Alaska State Troopers to reach and secure remote crime scenes. These obstacles make it easy for criminals to tamper with crime scenes and obscure evidence.
These are only some of the points Barefield covers when discussing these crimes. She has also carefully researched the victims, suspects, and locations including the weather conditions and the general temperaments of the residents. Some townspeople are suspicious of law enforcement officers and protective of their neighbors. This makes investigating crimes harder for “outsiders.”
The victims and the perpetrators of these crimes are all unique though they share certain similarities. Crimes against women, especially Alaska Native women are shockingly high. Alcohol and substance abuse contribute to 62% of all violet crimes Alaska State Troopers investigate. Many criminals come to Alaska after committing crimes in other states because it’s easy to hide in a remote area. They will often continue their criminal activities.
During the Alaskan gold rush, miners in remote areas who were lucky enough to find gold were easy targets for criminals.
In later years, the pipeline booms caused rapid population increases in key cities. People were moving to Alaska in droves to be part of the boom. Pipeline workers were making large sums of money. Bars, nightclubs, and brothels sprang up with a ready supply of alcohol, drugs, and sex workers. Alcohol fueled disagreements contributed to spikes in crime.
Local law enforcement agencies lacked the manpower to keep up with the lawlessness that resulted creating an environment similar to the Wild West of the 1800’s in the United States.
It’s a fascinating read, well-researched and thought-provoking. I’ve been receiving Robin Barefield’s True Crime Newsletter for several years, and I enjoy listening to her podcasts. To sign up for her newsletter, visit her website, https://robinbarefield.com/
Listen to her podcasts at http://robinbarefield.com/podcast-murder-and-mystery/
Other Books By Robin Barefield:
Big Game (2012)
Murder Over Kodiak (2016)
The Fisherman’s Daughter (2017)
Karluk Bones (2019)
Kodiak Island Wildlife (2021)
Massacre at Bear Creek Lodge (2022)