Crime & Courts

Steve Kroschel over the last two decades has offered tens of thousands of visitors close-up views of animals including wolves, moose – and a brown bear named Kitty.

But on a walk through the Kroschel Films Wildlife Center in Mosquito Lake on Friday morning, the property was quiet. The animal enclosures appeared empty. Save one – it held a mink.

The critter, it seemed, was left behind after Alaska Wildlife Troopers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game arrived at the property on Thursday, executed a search warrant and seized 39 animals. No charges have been filed, but a copy of the warrant provided to KHNS by Kroschel’s attorney indicates he’s under investigation for crimes including animal cruelty.

Dennis Seifert, who lives down the road and sometimes helps out at the center, stopped by on Friday at the request of center staff.

“I’m just feeding the weasel that the cops missed,” Seifert said, after tossing a dead quail into the enclosure and filling a water dispenser. “We didn’t think they were going to get them because there’s underground tubes that run all around the property for them to travel in.”

The raid comes amid a years-long saga between Kroschel and the state of Alaska – namely, the Department of Fish and Game.

The facility has been around since the early 2000s. By Kroschel’s count, it draws between 8,000 and 10,000 people every year.

Once inside, visitors are greeted by decorative piles of bones, and enclosures fastened with fencing, posts and hand-written warnings. Wooden planks on the moose enclosure, for instance, read: “Stay Back! Will Kick!” and “Do Not Touch Moose.”

A recent inventory report from Kroschel said he had 59 animals. But the state of Alaska is ultimately responsible for managing wildlife – including captive game. In fact, some were placed at the facility by Fish and Game, including a moose calf in 2022 and two minks in 2023, an agency spokesperson said.

But Fish and Game staff say they’ve been concerned about the facility for years, and more recently have asked Kroschel to address everything from what they say are inappropriate feeding practices to insufficient enclosures.

Kroschel, meanwhile, says he’s complied with the requests and that his facility is safe for both humans and animals.

“The [Alaska Department of Fish and Game] has wanted to get rid of me, and shut me up and shut me down for years. Three years,” Kroschel said in a phone interview on Monday.

“But I’ve been doing this for 24 years here in Haines, licensed and operating. No one’s ever gotten bitten, and there’s not been anything egregious has happened,” he added.

Animal welfare, feeding, hygiene concerns

Kroschel acknowledges that there have been some incidents. In 2023, for instance, a moose escaped from its enclosure and wandered off the property. And in 2021, a bear broke into the facility and killed two moose.

Then, last August, Kroschel’s federal license lapsed. The Chilkat Valley News reported at the time that it was later reinstated, but in the meantime, Fish and Game revoked his state educational permit. The agency did so on the grounds that he didn’t have the required federal license – and pointed to a long list of other concerns.

“The underlying problems have to do with animal welfare, basic care and feeding, hygiene, those kinds of things. And also security,” Mark Burch, who serves as the assistant director of Fish and Game’s Division of Wildlife Conservation, said in an interview in mid-June.

Kroschel contends he’s done everything the regulators have asked him to do – from fixing and expanding enclosures, to adding new fencing and more.

In April, Kroschel reapplied for the state permit. But in a May 2 letter seen by KHNS, Fish and Game said staff had reviewed the new application and identified more concerns.

Among them: Kroschel reported using pool treatment chemicals to clean animals’ drinking water, which the department said could be toxic if consumed regularly.

“I encourage you to realistically assess if you can meet the requirements listed below, and if not, please advise us of that. If the issues are not corrected by June 15, 2025, I will not issue a 2025 permit,” Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang wrote in the letter.

Michelle Bittner, an attorney who has been working with Kroschel on permitting issues, said she and Kroschel responded to the agency’s concerns in late May. That included by clarifying that Kroschel had used small amounts of chlorine dioxide to clean water receptacles, and by submitting a positive report from a veterinarian, who visited the property earlier that month.

When Bittner followed up on the status of the permit on June 21, Vincent-Lang replied that the Fish and Game was coordinating with other agencies and would have a decision soon, according to an email exchange seen by KHNS.

Bittner said that was the last communication from the commissioner before state wildlife troopers and Fish and Game staff arrived at the property on June 26, executed the search warrant and seized the animals.

An ongoing investigation

Alaska Department of Public Safety Spokesperson Austin McDaniel said he can’t comment further on the warrant, which is confidential, or potential charges mid-investigation.

But the warrant indicates the troopers were there to gather evidence related to animal abuse. It also says animals seized included Kitty, Kroschel’s brown bear, a moose, three wolves and three lynx.

Kroschel said that when he returned to the property after the fact, he found a range of animals had been left behind – including the mink, and an injured fox. He added that the warrant has some inconsistencies.

“Where the hell did they get three lynx? There’s two lynx. So either they don’t know how to even identify a species, or they can’t count,” he said.

Fish and Game spokesperson Shannon Mason declined to answer a list of questions earlier this week about the decision to remove the animals, and where they are now.

But the agency said in a statement on Tuesday that it had relocated 39 animals from the facility – and that some were left behind. The animals were then transported to Anchorage. Two animals died during the operation – a wolf, before transport, and a snowy owl, which was euthanized once in Anchorage “due to pre-existing health conditions,” the statement said.

Kitty the bear has reportedly been transferred to the Alaska Zoo. Reached in Anchorage by phone on Wednesday, Kroschel said he visited the zoo and saw Kitty in an enclosure.

McDaniel, with the public safety department, directed all animal-related questions to Fish and Game. He added that troopers did not relocate any animals during their search for evidence and that he can’t provide a timeline for the investigation.

Kroschel, for his part, is still processing the raid – and potential criminal charges. He said the animals are his family and that he will continue working to protect them.

“How would you feel if your family was torn away from you and you didn’t even know where they went, how they are almost a week later?” he said.

In an aim to make some money in the interim, he’s working to launch a new tour attraction in Skagway. Pending permit approval, he said tourists will be able to purchase a ticket and spend 30 minutes with his reindeer. Unlike the other animals, they’re considered livestock – and aren’t managed by Fish and Game.

Skagway Borough Manager Emily Deach said in an email that commercial tourism activities in the borough’s industrial zone require a conditional use permit. Kroschel has submitted a permit application for the “feeding and viewing of reindeer for tourism.”

Deach said the Skagway Planning and Zoning Commission will review the permit application July 10.

Thirty-five men who were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the Lower 48 and held for weeks in an Anchorage jail have now been transferred out of state, officials say.

Last month, the state Department of Corrections announced that it had taken in 40 men who were arrested and detained in the Lower 48, and housed them at the Anchorage Correctional Complex, under a deal with the federal government. The move triggered backlash, as immigration attorneys raised concerns about conditions in the Anchorage jail.

In a statement Monday, DOC spokeswoman Betsy Holley said the remaining 35 men held in the state were recently transferred back into the custody of the federal Department of Homeland Security. She declined to say where the men were transferred to, citing security reasons.

“Alaska DOC is a holding facility for the federal government,” Holley said in an email. “It was never intended that the detainees would be in Alaska for long-term.”

Announcement of the transfer came two days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska sent a letter to state Attorney General Treg Taylor, demanding that the state not hold ICE detainees at the Anchorage Correctional Complex for more than 72 hours until conditions improved at the facility. In June, ACLU attorneys testified at a state House Judiciary Committee hearing that detainees were being held in “punitive conditions,” which they claimed violated ICE standards. At the same hearing, state DOC Commissioner Jen Winkelman acknowledged several “bumps in the road” in the detention process.

ACLU spokeswoman Meghan Barker said in an email that attorneys with her organization were alerted to the transfer after they tried to confirm pre-scheduled meetings with some of the detainees.

“We’re unsure where they were sent and if safe and humane transport was provided, which was one of the demands we made in our letter,” Barker wrote.

Holley said there is currently one man in custody in the state who’d been detained by ICE officials in Alaska. She said he was arrested before the group of 40 detainees were flown to Anchorage.

Regional ICE spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday regarding the transfer, including where the men were sent and why they were transferred to Alaska in the first place. In at least one instance, a man arrested by ICE officials in Anchorage was transferred out of state to an immigration facility in Tacoma, Washington.

Content warning: this story contains details about suspected sexual violence against women.

On a cold afternoon in January 2023, Tanya Ulrich opened her door to see a Juneau police officer. He told her that her sister, Isabelle Sam, was found dead in a van outside of a local grocery store.

“I asked if we can go and see her really quick, make sure that it is her – because I didn’t, I didn’t want to believe it,” Ulrich said. “And they said that you can’t come see her.”

Ulrich wouldn’t get to see her sister’s body for more than a week.

“I called again the next day at the morgue, and they said they were already sending her up to Anchorage for the autopsy,” she said.

The state medical examiner in Anchorage found the cause of death was an overdose from fentanyl and alcohol. Sam’s death was classified as an accident. The police said there wasn’t enough evidence to make a case against anyone.

Now, two years later, her family still has questions about the circumstances surrounding her death. After seeing the police report, they worry she may have been the victim of a crime. 

This family’s story isn’t uncommon. Alaska Native families often carry the burden of unanswered questions when their loved ones die of unnatural causes.  

For Sam’s family, questions began to surface almost immediately, when authorities released her body. 

“We didn’t get to see her until the day we had her funeral over in Sitka, and that’s when we realized that she had some bruises on her – on her face,” Ulrich said. “It really, really upset me and her kids.”

The state medical examiner’s report on Sam’s death says Sam had “contusions” on her face and neck, but those injuries didn’t cause her death. Later, the family saw autopsy photos and Ulrich said there were also bruises all over her body.

Isabelle Sam’s death is similar to that of many Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, or MMIP, cases where the family’s suspicions go unresolved because authorities don’t have enough evidence to investigate further, or make arrests. 

Sam was Lingít – Kaagwaantaan from Sitka. She was a mother and a grandmother. She had been unhoused and struggling with addiction for some time. Ulrich said Sam experienced domestic violence from partners in the past, and she was always worried about her. 

Ulrich said her sister loved going berry picking and playing softball. She said Sam always made things fun.

“You could really just see her out on the dance floor, like dancing away,” she said. “Doesn’t really matter which song. She was just fun-loving.”

Ulrich lost another sibling shortly after Sam’s death, and she was juggling multiple jobs and a child with special needs. But she couldn’t stop thinking about her sister. This past February, she requested the police report from the investigation into Sam’s death. 

In the report were details that made her feel even more uneasy. For example, there were two men with Sam in the van when she died – and one of them told police the other was acting guilty. When police saw her body, she was partially undressed.

The medical examiner ordered a sexual assault examination. The nurse who filed the report said there were signs of sexual assault after death on Sam’s body. But a doctor with the medical examiner’s office told police he wasn’t sure of that. 

Though the medical examiner’s report determined Sam’s death was accidental, Ulrich says she sees enough suspicious details in the reports that she thinks a crime took place around her sister’s death. She’s read them over and over again. 

“I keep getting confused,” Ulrich said. “That’s why I keep rereading everything, seeing if I missed anything. Or, like, maybe it’ll make more sense. I put it down. Every time I look at it, like, there’s stuff that contradicts stuff, there’s stuff that don’t make sense.”

Juneau Deputy Police Chief Krag Campbell said the investigating officer for Sam’s case followed normal procedure, and that there wasn’t enough evidence in this case to proceed with any charges related to her death. 

Campbell said the medical examiner determines the official cause of death and that influences how an investigation will proceed. 

“We’re looking at them to say, like, is this suspicious in nature?” he said. 

Unless there is unmistakable evidence of a crime, he said.

“Outside of seeing a – during an investigation – seeing an obvious sign of something that would cause death, or someone saying, ‘I saw so-and-so kill them,’ you know, that type of stuff,” he said. 

In this case, the medical examiner’s office wouldn’t confirm to JPD that there were definite signs of assault on Sam’s body, despite contusions on her face and neck, and trauma to other areas of her body. 

Campbell confirmed that her case was taken to the prosecutor, but there wasn’t enough evidence to take it to trial. 

Now, Isabelle Sam’s family doesn’t know what to do with their questions. 

“That is unfortunately too common of an experience where families have followed every end that they can. They’ve done everything that they can,” said Aqpik Charlene Apok, founder of Data for Indigenous Justice.  

Apok’s nonprofit collects and publishes data about missing and murdered Indigenous people. Her database is different from what state authorities report. It includes cases that have been officially closed – ruled as suicides and accidents – where families think there is more to the story.

Apok said deaths like Sam’s often go without prosecution, even when the family thinks they should be taken to court. 

“We may not be seeing eye to eye, from family to prosecution or family and law enforcement,” she said. 

Apok said families often still have questions after authorities close their loved one’s case. 

“And that’s why we have awareness about this issue,” Apok said. “That’s why we’re trying to have systemic change. That’s why we’re trying to see patterns like that, so that we can identify, then, where is that gap? What is happening?”

The legal system may not be able to answer all of the questions Isabelle Sam’s family has about what happened in the last hours of her life. But there are structural disparities that affect Alaska Native people – stemming from generations of colonial violence – that could have contributed to her death in that van.

In 2022, Alaska Native people died from overdoses at more than three times the rate of white people in Alaska. 

Alaska Native people make up nearly half of the state’s unhoused population, while only making up 16% of the state’s population as a whole. 

Apok said families shouldn’t be left to question the circumstances around their loved one’s death. But many still do. 

“I call them survivor families,” she said. “They shouldn’t have to burden as much as they are, to carry it forward.”

And for Tanya Ulrich, the loss is still fresh. She read a message from Sam’s daughter, who lives in Sitka, that said what a good mom Sam was, how she always looked out for her kids.

“‘She made sure her kids were always safe and okay,’” Ulrich read. “‘She took care of us the best that she could.’”

A man originally charged with the 2022 murder of a Juneau woman is being released from prison after a Juneau court dismissed all charges against him on Monday. 

Anthony Michael Migliaccio was arrested two months after Faith Rogers was found dead on a popular Juneau hiking trail. He was charged with three counts of murder and one count of manslaughter.

Judge Marianna Carpeneti ruled that Migliaccio can be released from Goose Creek Correctional Center in Wasilla as of Monday. Migliaccio’s attorney, Nico Ambrose, was not immediately willing to answer questions about the decision.

Michelle Rogers, Faith’s sister, described her as a caring person who treated the people she worked with with empathy. Rogers was a substance use counselor in Juneau at the time of her death. Her sister said the family is upset by the court’s decision.

“My sister was a wonderful human being,” she said. “I mean, she tried to make the world a better place.”

A jury indicted Migliaccio on two counts of murder and one of manslaughter in 2022. Now, the court has dismissed those charges, citing “improper evidence.”

Rogers says she’s having trouble making sense of how the case reached this point.

“I just don’t understand how there is no physical evidence,” she said.

The court’s order says that exhibits submitted by Juneau police to the grand jury during the indictment process were based on hearsay, and the original indictments were based on improper evidence. 

She says her sister’s death and the subsequent court proceedings have hit her family hard. 

“It’s ripped our family apart, you know,” she said. “I mean, we used to be a really tight family, but this has kind of left everybody destroyed, to tell you the truth.”

In a Monday statement, District Attorney Whitney Bostick said the state would not refile charges against Migliaccio. 

“We fully recognize the weight of this decision and the impact it will have on the victim’s family, who continue to mourn the loss of their loved one—a victim of a tragic and senseless act,” it read.  “However our duty as prosecutors is to move forward with charges only when the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt.”

It said that the state no longer believes it can prove the case due to new evidence.

Correction: Migliaccio was charged, but not indicted, on the murder one charge.

This story has also been updated. 

A Juneau court declared a woman who has been missing for six years legally dead Tuesday, at the request of her family.

Her case was never solved. They sought the death declaration in the hopes of getting a chance to ask police about their investigation in front of an official audience, but that didn’t happen.

Tracy Lynn Day’s family hasn’t heard from her since Valentine’s Day 2019.

Six years later, in a Juneau courtroom, Judge Peggy McCoy presided over a jury of six through the proceedings to declare Day legally dead. 

“You’ve been called in as jurors today for a presumptive death hearing to consider the circumstances of the disappearance of Tracy Lynn Day and to determine whether she should be presumed dead,” McCoy told jurors. 

Day’s daughter Kaelyn Schneider petitioned for the declaration. She said the death declaration would help her family settle her estate but that’s not the main reason she came to the courthouse. She came in the hopes of getting answers from the Juneau Police Department and the justice system. 

Over the last few years, Schneider has been using social media to bring attention to her mother’s case by connecting it to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples’ cases nationwide.

Day was Lingít and experiencing homelessness when she went missing. But Schneider said Day stayed in contact with her regularly. 

“We just wanted to tell her story in a legal setting and make JPD answer our questions,” she said to KTOO after the hearing. “That’s what this was about.” 

In the courtroom, Judge Peggy McCoy called Juneau police Detective Frank Dolan to the stand. He wasn’t the detective who originally investigated the case. The investigating detective is no longer with JPD. A spokesperson for the department said in an email that no officer is currently assigned to this case, but if there is new information, a detective will be assigned. 

McCoy asked Dolan questions about his knowledge of the case, and he summarized the evidence in the files. He said there was no evidence of Day leaving Juneau or of anyone seeing her after February 2019, and he testified that he doesn’t believe she is still alive based on the evidence he read. 

Schneider and her family planned to also ask Dolan questions themselves. But Judge McCoy said that in a death declaration hearing, only the judge and jury are able to question witnesses.

“All we’re trying to establish today is there’s no reason to believe that she’s still alive,” she told Schneider. 

McCoy also asked Schneider and other members of Day’s family about the last time they spoke to her and if they believe she is dead. They all said they haven’t seen or spoken with her since that Valentine’s Day, and they believe her to be dead.  

Later, Schneider said she had been preparing to give the court testimony and ask questions about parts of the case she doesn’t understand.

“I had all these questions that I was gonna ask,” she said later to KTOO. “I stayed up all night. I’ve been working on this for weeks.”

Schneider said police have denied her requests to access the police files about her mother’s case. JPD’s spokesperson said the department’s policy is that they don’t share police reports in open cases.

The family also wants to know if the case is still open or if the declaration will affect its status. Juneau police say that missing persons cases stay open until the person is found, and Day’s legal status as dead or alive does not change the case’s status.

Petersburg police have arrested two men in a six-figure fraud scheme against a senior in the Southeast Alaska town, after a sting operation last week with assistance from the FBI.

Court records show Shubham Patel, 24, and Harshilkumar Patel, 22, face felony state charges of scheme to defraud and first-degree theft in the case, involving losses of nearly $130,000. The men are unrelated citizens of India.

According to charging documents in the case, police got a report on June 2 that a resident had first been targeted in mid-May by phone scammers posing as federal officials. The victim told investigators that a fake Drug Enforcement Administration agent using the alias “Sean Watson” said her identity had been stolen, and convinced her to wire them nearly $80,000.

They then allegedly convinced her to hand-deliver an additional $50,000 in cash to a person posing as a government agent in Petersburg on May 20. Investigators later identified that person as a third suspect, who hasn’t yet been charged according to court records.

The victim was contacted by “Watson” again later and told to deliver an additional $60,000 cash to another “undercover agent,” according to the charges. Her family alerted local authorities, which arranged the sting operation.

Investigators said in the charges that they saw Shubham and Harshilkumar Patel arrive at the Petersburg airport on June 9 and scope the meeting place before redirecting the victim somewhere else.

Harshilkumar got the cash from the victim, and then law enforcement arrested both men.

According to investigators, Harshilkumar said he was recruited by Shubham shortly before traveling to Petersburg in June, but had reservations about being involved and claimed not to know the people giving him instructions for the exchange or what the money was for.

But the investigation found Shubham’s name connected to a May hotel stay in Petersburg with the third suspect, a U-Haul rental and thousands of dollars in gift cards and USPS money orders purchased locally in Petersburg.

Through a translator, the Patels heard their charges on Tuesday during a joint first-appearance hearing at the Petersburg Courthouse. They remain in custody in Juneau.

Petersburg Magistrate Judge Rachel Newport set Shubham’s bail at $300,000; he opted to find his own legal representation. Newport set Harshilkumar’s bail at $100,000 total, noting his alleged later involvement; he opted to have a public attorney assigned to his case. The public defender’s office in Juneau did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The victim didn’t wish to speak for the record during the hearing. She has asked not to be named publicly at this time.

The Patels’ next court appearance is scheduled for Friday in Petersburg.

Petersburg police said their investigation into the case is ongoing, with additional arrests possible. In a press release, the department credited the FBI, Ketchikan District Attorney’s Office, Juneau District Attorney’s Office and other agencies for their cooperation.

Resources for avoiding scams are available online from the FBI.