Bonnie Craig Murder Trial Continues

Investigating Troopers, DNA Analyst Take Stand

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By Grace Jang
Bio | Email | Follow: @GraceJangKTVA

Story Created: Jun 6, 2011 at 11:09 PM AKDT

Story Updated: Jun 7, 2011 at 9:04 AM AKDT

 

ANCHORAGE—At about 4 p.m., Sept. 28, 1994, Troopers arrived at McHugh Creek to investigate a call about a body floating in the water.
 
Troopers Investigator Curt Harris, who has since retired, was assigned to lead the case.
 
“When I first got there I had no idea,” Harris said. “There was crime scene tape there. There was a delineation of what the patrol people felt was a perimeter. But when you go into something like this, you don't know.”
 
Troopers soon discovered the body was that of 18-year-old Bonnie Craig. They said she didn't board the bus or make it to any of her exams at UAA.
 
“In the subsequent days, we got up at the same time she would have and walked her path that was described to us that we would lead from her residence to Lake Otis to the bus stop,” said Capt. Barry Wilson, who was an investigator in 1994 with Troopers’ criminal investigation bureau. “We walked that path and got on the bus on the day she would be on that bus to UAA, talked to people.
 
The defense cross-examined Wilson.
 
“When you rode the bus nobody mentioned anything about, ‘Hey, I saw a redhead on the bus on September 28, 1994’?” Andrew Lambert, attorney for the accused killer Kenneth Dion, asked Wilson.
 
“No, nobody said that,” Wilson said.
 
Troopers also searched on that route for her missing belongings—“book pack, fanny pack, calculator—one of the old Texas Instrument calculators, ID for the university, driver’s or learning permit and a key ring and the book bag with books.”
 
“As far as you know any of those items recovered?” asked Paul Miovas, assistant attorney general for the state Department of Law.
 
“Not that I'm aware of,” Wilson said.
 
Craig’s body and clothes were analyzed at the state crime lab for DNA.
 
“Just because we have the presence of sperm doesn't mean that Ken Dion murdered Bonnie Craig, does it?” Lambert asked forensic scientist Kristin Denning.
 
“I can't answer to that,” Denning said.
 
“And just because there's a presence of sperm doesn't mean he sexually assaulted her does it?” Lambert said.
 
“I can't answer to that either, so, yes, you're correct,” Denning said.
 
But state says Dion did, indeed, kidnap, rape and murder the young college student.
 

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