Alaska's missing Indigenous list rises to 359 as 16 Anchorage cases enter as 'unknown'

The Alaska Department of Public Safety lists 359 Alaska Native, American Indian or unknown-race people as missing as of Sept. 30, up from 355 on June 30, the figure in the second-quarter report Alaska News covered Sept. 3. The numbers come from the department's third-quarter report, posted Oct. 21.

The report's case table adds 21 people since the last report. Sixteen are Anchorage Police Department cases classified as "unknown." Fifteen of those were last contacted between July and September; one dates to July 2024. The other five are three not-suspicious cases from this year and two environment cases, one last contacted in 1963. Four of the 21 were born between 2009 and 2011.

The report says investigating agencies decide each case's category. It does not explain why the 16 new cases are "unknown" rather than suspicious or not suspicious, or say whether any have been resolved. Its key defines "unknown" only as "unable to determine circumstance." The chart's unknown category rose from 17 to 33.

The table also dropped 16 people: 13 not-suspicious cases from this year, 11 of them Anchorage police cases, plus one suspicious case, one unknown case and one environment case from 2009. The report does not say whether those people were found alive, found dead or removed for another reason. No case listed in both reports changed category.

The reports cover the state department and seven municipal police departments. The new table lists 360 people: 305 state cases, 46 from Anchorage police, eight from Fairbanks police and one from Seward police. Homer, Kenai, Soldotna and Wasilla police report none.

The chart and table disagree. The chart lists 39 not-suspicious and 33 unknown cases; the table lists 41 and 32. The report says its contents "are dynamic and subject to change."

Suspicious cases fell by one, to 20: 11 women and nine men, the only category where women outnumber men. Environment cases, which the report defines as wilderness, waterways, ocean, aircraft crashes and other non-suspicious outdoor deaths where remains were not located, number 267.

Homicide charts, labeled preliminary Alaska Department of Health data, count 18 victims this quarter: 12 men and six women, seven of them age 40 to 49. The second-quarter charts counted 10, all men. The captions do not say whether the counts include only Alaska Native and American Indian victims.

During the quarter, the Missing Persons Clearinghouse recorded 57 people of all races reported missing, 27 of them Alaska Native, American Indian or unknown race. It located 295 people, 196 from that group, and 180 runaway juveniles, while 14 were not found. Alaska has no mandatory waiting period before a missing person can be reported, the report notes.