Alaska State Troopers have identified the person whose death is being investigated in Kake as a 13-year-old girl.
Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters identified her as 13-year-old Mackenzie Howard, a Kake resident. Next of kin have been notified.
Her body was found inside or by Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kake by an employee just before midnight on Tuesday, Peters said.
The body will be sent to Anchorage for an autopsy, which will determine the cause and manner of death.
Officials have remained mum on details of their investigation, although Peters did note that the small village of Kake — with a population of about 600 — saw an influx of people in town on Tuesday as it hosted a large funeral memorial service. Peters was presumably referring to the service for Sealaska Board Member Clarence Jackson, who died late last month.
“A lot of people have left town, just more work for us to do,” Peters said in a phone interview.
Alaska State Troopers in Juneau, the Alaska Bureau of Investigation out of Anchorage and a crime scene response team from the state Crime Detection Laboratory are currently investigating Howard’s death.
Peters said troopers are not releasing more information at this time.
• Contact reporter Emily Russo Miller at 523-2263 or at emily.miller@juneauempire.com.
Comments (18)
Add commentPlease find and report the
Please find and report the details as soon as possible - the local grapevine has already been flooded with name, age, and circumstances.
oh dear.
oh dear.
Prayers for all....
Praying for the little angel and her family. May heaven's new angel find peace and comfort in the arms of our lord.
Yes, please
As JNUKARA stated, it is all over Facebook. I understand the limitations of the media regarding sensitive issues such as this but reading bits and pieces on social networking sites is troublesome. If what is being said is true, prayers go out to this family and this community. Names and sensitive details don't have to be disclosed but an accurate and less vague article could prevent a lot of gossip and further pain for the family.
Social media
As soon as we received verified facts tonight from the Alaska State Troopers our reporter, Emily Russo Miller, updated and expanded the brief story she broke earlier today. We know a lot of things have moved over social media, and we've heard a lot of things ourselves. The pace at which official details are emerging is frustrating, but law enforcement has a job to do. We respect that their top goal is not keeping the press and public up to date; rather, they are trying to find out what happened and why. As I just said on our own Facebook page tonight, news organizations have to take a measured approach. The investigating agency has not released a lot of information and this is a very serious incident. The "accurate and less vague article" we all seek sometimes takes a bit of time to unravel. Rumors fly fast, and we don't want to go there. Social media can be useful for spreading information, but harmful misinformation can also be spread, even by the well-intentioned. We will follow this story closely.
John
The day you start sourceing articles from 'social media' is the day i'll quit reading.......
John Moses
Point well-taken, however, I wasn't necessarily just talking about social media. Juneau is a small town - Kake even smaller - and a good deal of information gets spread by word-of-mouth. I've lived in Juneau since 1975 and know a great deal of the people here and I was receiving phone calls all day about this. And the details were more correct than the usual gossip. That being said, I appreciate that newspapers have to wait for facts. And I appreciate that you strive for accuracy.
Mr. Moses
Mr. Moses, thank you for your professional response to this. These days it seems many are addicted to social network sites and believe everything that people post... What happened (a tragic loss of a young girl) was reported (accurately) in a sister community of ours.
I submit we as a community and individuals pray, or consider deeply how this shakes us to our core. Lifting up the family, freinds and community of Kake.
Heartbreaking :(
I know one of the family members as does my kids. It's just heart wrenching. Thank You JE for not giving details until facts are out there. No one needs to know until the family knows, and even then anything that doesn't affect our safety we don't need to know. (IMO)
Sending my Love to Kake.
Do not spread rumours or innuendo
this young girl & her family deserve the sanctity of respect for the deceased and begrieved.
Love and Support
Whatever the story is, what matters is a child has passed and the family deserves everyones love and support, not their gossip and rumors. Prayers from one family to another and our condolences. We hope you are able to find peace.
My prayer
Go out to this family my heart aches for their loss.
Very Tragic
Our hearts and prayers go out to this family as they try to get through this difficult time. Rest in Peace little Angel. God Bless
Woe unto him that affends one of my little ones!
I pray that God reveals the clues and evidance this killer left behind and I pray these investigators are good enough to find them. And when man is done with him then he will stand before a living god to answer for what he has done. And it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. I pray he is found quickly and the family finds some sense of justice. To bad we do not have the death penallity in Alaska. The sad thing is that if he is found we will have fo feed and cloth and take care of him till he dies. There should be an automatic death sentance for any one that kills a child.
Mr. Moses
Thank you for a clear explanation of the news as it appears in the Juneau Empire.
As one who does not have Facebook, and does not "Twitter" or "Tweet, " but simply reads the new on the internet as it is sent out, we just have to be patient, and wait to get all the facts.
In the meantime we need to extend our condolences to the family of the victim and the people of Kake in what I am sure is a very difficult time for all of them.
Thank you.
Where were the parents of this 13 yr old who was missing?
Why is there no mention of a manhunt for a missing child instead of a church worker finding the poor girl at midnight?
Hanging is too good for the murderer of a child.
There was a funeral that day,
There was a funeral that day, as well as a community dinner. Funeral activities can go on late into the evening in our Native villages. What an unimaginable loss to the parents, to the family & friends, to the whole community. Eeshaan Kake.
open response
I keep my troller in Kake. The community is small & tight. I did not know this young girl, nor do I know her family, but I do know that nothing happens in Kake that the whole community does not know about, intimately.
Keep any negatives to yourself. The community is weeping and does not need more grief.