The police department in Kotzebue, Alaska, says it will not reopen its investigation into a woman’s death on the property of a former Northwest Arctic Borough mayor. The case had been the subject of an Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica investigation into the 2018 death of Jennifer Kirk and the death of another woman, who was found strangled on the same property two years later.

Kirk, 25, died May 23, 2018, at a home owned by then-Mayor Clement Richards Sr. According to police reports, the Alaska medical examiner’s office initially told a city police investigator that “signs of strangulation” had been found on Kirk’s body. The man who said he found her body — Anthony Richards, one of the mayor’s sons — had previously been charged with strangling Kirk and pleaded guilty to assaulting her, though he said he was not involved in her death.

Police eventually closed the case as a suicide. In an open letter to Kotzebue residents last week, police Chief Roger Rouse said neither the city nor state have plans to reopen the investigation. Rouse wrote that the Alaska Bureau of Investigation reviewed the case and told Kirk’s family that “nothing in the investigation as it stands would change the sad conclusions of the incident.”

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The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons unit of the Alaska State Troopers is investigating the death of Susanna “Sue Sue” Norton, who was found beaten and strangled on Clement Richards Sr.’s property in 2020. The Kotzebue Police Department referred the investigation to the state.

In that case, the medical examiner determined Norton’s death to be a homicide caused by “asphyxiation due to obstruction of airways and compression of neck.” The autopsy also found that Norton had suffered “multiple blunt force injuries of head, neck and extremities.” For Alaska Families, Questions Remain About Unsolved Deaths and “Suicides”

Amos Richards, another of the former mayor’s sons, had previously pleaded guilty to assaulting Norton. The sons and former mayor have not responded to multiple phone calls, in-person visits and certified letters asking for information about the deaths on the property. Since the investigation into Norton’s death remains open, police have not released their report on it.