Story by KNBA's Rhonda McBride
The remains of a woman found in a wooded area in Spenard last week have been identified as Kelly Hunt, a 19-year-old college student from Shaktoolik that had been missing since January.
The Anchorage Police Department said the search for Hunt ended in a ravine near Lois Drive and West 36th Avenue on April 20.
Hunt had been staying at a home in the same neighborhood and was last seen leaving on the morning of Jan. 7. Her family reported her missing four days later.
Advocates for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People have questioned the police response that followed. Michael Livingston, a retired Anchorage police officer and MMIP advocate, said Hunt’s case reflects a pattern he’s seen too often.
“When a young Alaska Native woman is reporting missing, it is too late, and now we are looking at human remains,” Livingston said.
Livingston said several red flags in Hunt’s disappearance should have prompted a more aggressive investigation. He said Hunt had left her purse behind, with money inside, as well as clothing, signs she did not plan to be gone long.
“Was there any more that anybody could have done to try to have located her, early on in the game, to see whether or not any video surveillance cameras or people in the neighborhood might have seen anything suspicious?” Livingston questioned.
Livingston said he would like to see an investigation into the police response.
APD Chief Sean Case said he would be happy to discuss the investigation with advocates, but for now, the ability of investigators to talk about the case is very limited.
“Some people look at that as a missing person, and we should put all that information out to the public and make everything publicly available, so everybody knows what we're doing,” Case said. “But the problem is that can really cause challenges, if it does become a criminal investigation later on.”
Case said one of the challenges was the four-day gap between the time that Hunt went missing and her disappearance was reported.
“But as soon as we found out that she was missing, we took the report, and detectives took over that case and treated that case as a critical or a high-risk case, that there was definitely concern over,” Case said. “And so we had detectives involved in that case from the beginning, and we investigated that just in case that was turned into a crime.”
Case said police followed up on numerous leads, including vehicles and people of interest. He said the department’s crime scene team continues to process evidence as investigators wait for the Chief Medical Examiner to determine the exact cause of death. So far, no arrests have been made.
