The Ketchikan Police Department has heard local concerns circulating regarding several recent cases — including active missing person cases and a suicide — that foul play was involved and that the disappearances might be linked.
Ketchikan Police Chief Alan Bengaard and Deputy Police Chief Josh Dossett on Wednesday said the department has pursued leads and pieces of evidence in each case, and that the cases all remain active.
The KPD’s active missing person cases are:
• Thomas William Booth, 35, was last seen by his girlfriend between 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Jan. 2 on Woodland Avenue, according to Dossett.
Booth was going to run some errands — either on foot or by taking a bus — and didn’t come back. He made it to Safeway by 4:30 p.m. Jan. 2, Dossett said earlier this month.
Booth’s girlfriend reported him missing on Jan. 5. However, she told the KPD on Jan. 6 that she’d received word from Metlakatla — where Booth has family — that he was there and safe. On Jan. 15, the KPD was contacted by the Metlakatla Police Department, which said that Booth was not in Metlakatla, according to Dossett.
The Metlakatla department had been contacted by Booth’s mother, who was concerned for his safety, Dossett added.
Police haven’t been able to speak with anyone who saw Booth after he picked up a small money transfer — about $25 — at Safeway and left the store, Dossett said Wednesday.
“That’s the last place we could put him,” Dossett said, adding that Safeway’s security cameras are currently out of order. “They can’t download (the footage), so we haven’t been able to pull the actual video to look at it to see which door he walked out of.”
Booth’s cellphone records show no activity after he was initially reported missing, and there is no evidence Booth left Revillagigedo Island by commercial transit, according to Dossett.
• Gary Hamilton, 69, was reported to the department by his family as missing on Nov. 26, according to Bengaard.
“They’ve got no real good recollection of time or events,” Bengaard said. “Trying to get them to put something together in a chronological order is next to impossible. We’ve run down a number of the leads they had. We’ve had some say that he was in Sitka and (others say) Anchorage, and we’ve not been able to verify any of those whatsoever. … There is no evidence he’s left the island.”
The police also have heard that, prior to his disappearance, Hamilton appeared to have been beaten. Hamilton didn’t report any assault to the police.
“We cannot verify that someone actually assaulted him,” Bengaard said. “Yeah, we’ve heard the rumor (that) he was beaten up, but no one could say who did it or when it occurred.”
• Roy Victor Banhart, 38 years old at the time of his disappearance, was last seen in the early morning of Dec. 30, 2014, after leaving the 49er Bar on Water Street. A six-person Ketchikan District Court jury, on Oct. 21, reached a verdict that “it may fairly be presumed” that Banhart has died.
While the case is still active, police have pursued the leads and evidence they’ve found to this point, according to Dossett.
Police have heard that people think foul play might have been involved in the three missing person cases, according to Bengaard and Dossett.
“We don’t have any evidence either way,” Dossett said. “We don’t have any suspects. We certainly don’t have any reports that would cause us to say, ‘Yes, there’s been foul play.’”
Bengaard added that the idea of foul play being involved in the disappearances has been “circulating in the local rumor mill.”
“That would be purely speculative on our part,” Bengaard said. “ … You can’t make a statement like that. We just don’t know.”
“I would never make that statement without some factual basis behind it, and I don’t have those facts,” Dossett added.
Other cases
Police have no evidence that a local man’s suicide and a local woman’s drowning might have been the result of foul play.
Chris Hill, 31, was found dead of in the early morning of Jan. 18 under a covered area in the northern section of Berth 4.
The initial investigation found that the death was a suicide, and an autopsy conducted at the Alaska State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage did not turn up evidence to the contrary, according to Bengaard and Dossett.
Hill had parked the vehicle he was living in at the time near to where his body was found, and he left a suicide note, Dossett said.
While the drowning case was handled by the Alaska State Troopers, Bengaard and Dossett said they’d heard rumors about that incident as well.
At approximately 1 a.m. July 9, troopers received a report of a body floating in the Tongass Narrows less than a mile from the U.S. Coast Guard base.
Troopers and the Coast Guard recovered the body, which was not bound, and the victim was identified as 34-year-old Angeline Tanya Dundas.
There have been rumors that Dundas was bound — possibly hogtied — before her body was found.
“She was not hogtied,” Dossett said.
Dundas was with a friend on a dock along the Narrows when they separated. Dundas, who had been drinking, walked toward the end of the dock, according to Bengaard and Dossett.
“That’s the last contact that we know of,” Bengaard said.
Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters in an email Thursday said the death was ruled an accidental drowning, that there were no signs of foul play and that alcohol was a factor in her death.
Troopers and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad also conducted a search for a missing man in mid-November who hasn’t yet been found.
Justin Nathan, 22, was drinking and hiking with a friend on Deer Mountain. He was unable to make the descent — stopping around the second lookout, about two miles from the trailhead — and his friend came down the mountain to get help. Nathan was missing when the KVRS reached the lookout, and a multi-day search was unsuccessful.
Alcohol likely played a factor in most of the recent disappearances, according to Dossett.
Anyone with information on the missing person cases may contact the KPD at (907) 225-6631.
“These people are from Ketchikan and they have family members that are worried about them,” Dossett said. “We’ll run down any lead we get and try to talk to whoever has information, because we want to find out what happened to them and where they might be.”
