ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska State Troopers last week expanded their 2019 cold case list from 69 to 116 unsolved murders, according to the Department of Public Safety, which said it restored cases after public feedback from Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) advocates and others who challenged the department’s decision to remove cases that lacked viable leads.
According to U.S. Department of Justice data cited by the Violence Policy Center, Indigenous women in Alaska are murdered by men at rates more than 10 times higher than those of white women in Alaska, making the state’s approach to tracking these cases particularly significant for affected communities.
Charlene Apok, director of Data for Indigenous Justice, said that while significant improvements have been made in updating documentation such as victims’ names and case numbers, the efforts still fall short of where she and many others would like them to be…