It is dark as night and 14 below zero on this winter morning in Alaska, and I’m driving my son to school.
There are no streetlights on the highway we take into town, but this morning there is a huge full moon lighting the way. The moon hovers just above the tree line. A creeping mist and the silhouette of the passing forest creates a spooky effect.
“Wouldn’t this be this be the perfect setting for a horror film?” I ask Anders, a huge Hitchcok fan. He nods, staring out the window.
“Let’s listen to our podcast,” he says, grabbing my phone.
Our podcast is “My Favorite Murder,” stories of horrible true crimes told by two female hosts who have a great comedic edge. Due to its graphic nature and highly inappropriate language, the podcast has become one way this mother and son bond.
Coincidentally in this latest episode, the case discussed is about an Alaskan serial killer known as, “The Butcher Baker.”
https://myfavoritemurder.com/204-periodical-time-tables/
The Butcher Baker was actually a baker who probably made fantastic muffins and pastries. Unfortunately his alter-ego was a psychopath. One who brought women to his cabin which was so remote, it was only accessible by boat or float plane. There he’d strip and torture them, then send them out into the woods and hunt them down like prey. He was able to get away with murdering at least 17 women before he was caught. It was a real life horror story turned into John Cusack/Nicholas Cage movie. https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Ground-Nicolas-Cage/dp/B00EQ1187S
One of the hosts of the My Favorite Murder podcast, takes a detour from the telling of the Butcher Baker story to expound on how Alaska is the perfect place for a criminal “to get lost.”
Do people come to Alaska to “Get Lost?”
There is a saying that anyone moving to Alaska is running away from something. For me that something was a small laundry room with no place to fold, but for others could that something be the law?
Upon hearing the news that we were moving to Alaska our friends fell into two camps; the ones who envied the adventure. And the second and much larger camp, the ones who were horrified. Weren’t we worried about the remoteness, and the cold, and the dark, and seasonal affective disorder? And, surprisingly, a couple people asked if we weren’t we worried about the criminals? It didn’t occur to me that that was even a thing. “You should check the sex offender registry before you move,” one of my more concerned friends advised.
I didn’t check the National Sex Offender Public Website before I moved because, well, perhaps I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t going to change anything for us. I exercise caution and remind the kids to do the same wherever we are. But I checked the site today, six months after living here, and I compared it to our previous residence in Boulder, Colorado.
As of January 15, 2020, here were the numbers:
Boulder, Colorado. Population around 108, 000. Number of registered sex offenders, 11.
Soldonta, Alaska. Population around 4,500. Number of registered sex offenders, 44.
If the site’s map is accurate, there are two registered sex offenders on our lake alone.
Given the numbers, do I feel less safe here on the Kenai Peninsula than I did in Boulder? If we’re talking less safe from wildlife the answer is yes, but people? No, for some reason, I don’t. Of course being surrounded by such beauty makes it easy to feel a false sense of security. I try to be careful not to let my guard down because even in Narnia there is evil. And these days, Soldotna is Narnia.
Next to the year I lived alone in a raucous, rent controlled apartment building in Los Angeles, there is only one period of time where I felt on edge about who lived next door. Or in this case, across the street and two houses down.
I remember the moment a neighbor in Boulder told me a convicted Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) had been released after 14 years in prison and was now living with his mom across the street.
I had never formally met his mother, but I knew she had lived in our neighborhood forever. She and I exchanged hellos over the years whenever I was outside while she was walking her dog. She would often stop and ask how my kids were doing.
She was so nice, surely her son’s crime couldn’t have been that bad.
It was bad.
Years earlier and armed with a gun, Christopher Lawyer had attacked several strangers. He had broken into the home of a female college student injuring her before she was able to escape. He then came across a young female mail carrier, and dragged her into his car. He duct taped her mouth and eyes before he drove her some place remote, and raped her for hours at gun point. Afterwards he apologized to the woman for the fact that their first date, “had been a little awkward.”
Sexually Violent Predators vs Sexual Offenders
There is a difference between a sex offender and an SVP. The definition of an SVP is much more narrow. This is the legal description https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/sexually-violent-predator/: SVP or Sexually violent predator is a person who has been convicted of or charged with a sexually violent offense. An SVP must be diagnosed with a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others if not confined in a secure facility.
Given their mental diagnoses, SVPs are capable of attacking total strangers, which makes their future targets hard to predict.
“I wish I could make you feel better about this,” my smart, bad ass sister-in-law who is a New York City District Attorney said after reviewing Lawyer’s profile, “but I don’t know how this guy ever got released.”
How did he get released? And why wasn’t the neighborhood notified? Why weren’t his victims who still live in the area notified? He had already been living there a week before anyone knew and in the meantime the elementary and high school buses were making their usual pick-up and drop-offs directly in front of his house. No more that 200 feet from his front door.
Everyone was concerned including the Boulder police department, this was the first time someone with an SVP status had been placed in the city of Boulder. One day two parole officers stopped by my house after checking in on Lawyer. They had noticed my 13-year-old daughter and her friend chatting outside in our front yard and felt compelled to come over to warn us. I remember the female officer looking me in the eye and saying, “If I had kids and lived here, I would not let them hang out outside.”
At the time I was on the HOA board and our meetings usually looked like this; eight of us sitting around a kitchen table, snacking on cheddar cubes while debating appropriate punishments for neighbors not tending to their dandelions. That all changed with Christopher Lawyer’s arrival. We had to start booking a room at a conference center for the HOA meetings because suddenly everyone in the neighborhood was attending the meetings, including Christopher Lawyers mom. The truth was, like any other parent she was just trying to do the best by her child. It was sad to see her try to assure the room he was a non-issue. She calmly admitted that yes, a long time ago her son “had a bad day” (he wasn’t the only one) but that he was totally rehabilitated and it was silly to think of him as a threat. She went on to say he was very being very helpful by planting herbs in her garden. Responses to her ranged from sympathy to anger. I specifically remember a father and ex-cop from Australia seated behind her, he was having none of it. “It’s not a matter of if he will re-offend, but when!”
Lawyer Vs. Lawyers
Being placed in a close suburban community run by an HOA wasn’t ideal for someone like Lawyer; someone trying to fly under the radar and blend back into society. For one, practically half the neighborhood he had moved back to were lawyers too, but by profession. A team of them searched out the answer as to why someone with Christopher’s history was allowed back in the community. Eventually they got what at least felt like an answer; Lawyer’s mom had professional and social connections to multiple people who served on the parole board that granted her’s son’s release. These were the same people she planned to call when he was taken back in for parole violations.
I do think if Lawyer had moved to rural Alaska, his chances of flying under the radar would have been a million times better. That being said, if he violated probation by trespassing on another’s property in Alaska, he’d be more likely to be shot on site. With little to zero community outrage over the fact.