Few people these days would associate the word “cosmopolitan” with Tustumena Lake, and for good reason. The lake is part…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sometimes it seems as though the resolution of a criminal investigation, the resulting hearings or trials, and the…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: During the evening of Jan. 19, 1948, in Kenai, William Franke shot dead Ethen Cunningham near Cunningham’s home…
One early December morning in the old cabin, the Frankes were having breakfast when Cunningham stormed over.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: During the evening of Jan. 19, 1948, in Kenai, William Franke shot dead Ethen Cunningham near Cunningham’s home…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Ethen Cunningham came to the Kenai Peninsula in about 1940. He homesteaded along the lower Kenai River and…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: At the outset, I want to acknowledge invaluable contributions to this story from these three primary sources: the…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The aftermath of the 1967 shoot-out at the Hilltop Bar and Café, near Soldotna, began to play out…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: After the Ann Pederson suicide and the Jack Griffiths murder in 1961, the former Circus Bar in Soldotna…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The jury in the Jim Bush murder trial would soon have a decision to make. Bush did not…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: When a crime has no witnesses other than the accused perpetrator, investigators must search hard for other forms…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Only a few months after the 1961 suicide of “Mrs. Oscar W. Pederson” behind a bar in eastern…
From the moment my father began working for the U.S. Army in Whittier, Alaska, in the fall of 1957, until…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although the focus of this interconnected series of stories rests squarely upon actions that occurred in or near…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The motives people have for violent actions can be difficult to discern. We can examine the evidence we…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Best friends Ira Little and Marvin Smith came from California to the Kenai Peninsula in 1947. They homesteaded…
