On the afternoon of September 28, 1994, a University of Alaska Anchorage student was taking pictures from a hiking trail in a public park just off of the Seward Highway. She soon discovered that another female Alaska-Anchorage student was also along the trail, but she was not enjoying the scenery. At the bottom of a thirty-three-foot cliff, eighteen-year-old Bonnie Craig lay face down in the shallow waters of McHugh Creek.

Police initially believed Bonnie had died after falling from the cliff. The medical examiner determined she had drowned after sustaining severe head injuries, likely resulting from such a fall. Bonnie, however, also had bruises on her knuckles and other defensive wounds indicative of a struggle. A blood-soaked leaf found above the cliff area also suggested she was already injured before she fell.

After her autopsy was completed, the medical examiner ruled Bonnie Craig’s head injuries were not inflicted by a fall. Instead, she had been struck on the head by a blunt object. Her death was ruled a murder.

Two theories surfaced as to who had killed Bonnie Craig. One held she was killed by a classmate, while the other offered that her death was ordered by a drug dealer.

After thirteen years, however, it was proven that neither theory was correct, and that Bonnie Craig was killed in a random crime.

Bonnie Craig

Bonnie Craig’s mother, Karen Campbell, and her father, Gordon, divorced when Bonnie was three. For most of her life, Bonnie lived with Karen and her husband, Gary Campbell, but in the fall of 1994 she was living with her dad.

Bonnie was a freshman at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Because she did not drive, she walked from her father’s home to a bus stop to take public transportation to campus. She did this twice a week; the walk generally took approximately forty-five minutes. As Bonnie’s classes began early in the morning, it was always dark when she was on her school trek.

Bonnie had a 7:00 a.m. English class on September 28. A neighbor delivering papers saw her walking along the street at 5:20. An hour later, another neighbor saw her at the bus stop.

School Bound

The next time Bonnie Craig was seen, she was floating in McHugh Creek, ten miles from the bus stop where she caught her ride to campus. It was not a likely locale where one would normally hike along the stream and Bonnie had no reason to be there, particularly on a school day. It was theorized she had been kidnapped at the bus stop and transported to the park where she was killed.

McHugh Creek

The autopsy showed Bonnie had had recent sexual relations, but it could not be determined if the intercourse was consensual or if she had been raped.

She and her boyfriend, Cameron Miyasaki, had not been together recently, and Karen was certain Bonnie would not have willingly engaged in such activities with another man.

Likely Raped

Karen was a reserve officer with the Anchorage Police Department. She had partaken in multiple undercover sting operations resulting in the arrests of several small time drug dealers. One such bust occurred on September 27, the day before Bonnie’s murder.

Several months afterwards, Karen says an undercover acquaintance told her that Bonnie was killed by the head of an Anchorage drug ring. The fellow lawman said one of Karen’s stings resulted in the arrest of several members of the gang whose leader murdered Bonnie in retaliation.

Alaska State Troopers found no evidence to support the informant’s claim.

Karen Campbell

Bonnie’s Mother

In 1995, nearly one year after Bonnie Craig’s murder, a second suspect emerged when Karen received a phone call from one of her daughter’s college instructors.

The professor told Karen she believed a student who had been a classmate of Bonnie’s may have been responsible, or at the least, had some involvement in the crime. Her suspicions resulted from her reading the student’s class journal and the references he had made to the date of Bonnie’s murder.

The homework papers were supposed to be handed in on that day, but the student in question was absent without explanation. Later that afternoon, he brought his paper to the professor’s office and apologized for not being in the morning class, saying he had overslept. He was in a state of disarray, dripping wet and out of breath; he told the professor he had just gotten out of the shower. He smelled, in the words of the professor, like he had “bathed in cologne.”

In his journal, the student made several references to the day of Bonnie’s murder, claiming it would be a “very tough day” and that he would be “put to a test.” The instructor said many of his writings before Bonnie’s murder were violent, but that subsequent writings were peaceful.

Anchorage police investigated the student but ruled him out as a suspect when DNA on Bonnie’s body was not a match to his.

Killed by a Classmate?

Though investigators had two promising suspects, they had no evidence connecting either one to Bonnie’s murder. For the next decade, the crime remained as cold as an Alaskan winter.

The break in the case came in November 2006, when the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) matched semen found on Bonnie’s body to thirty-seven-year-old former Army soldier Kenneth Dion. At the time of the match, Dion was imprisoned in his native New Hampshire for a string of armed robberies.

After joining the Army, Dion was stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage. He stayed in the city for a couple of years after leaving the Army, during which time he was consistently in trouble. Over those two years, he was in and out of jail on robbery and assault charges.

Dion was behind bars in Alaska until the end of July 1994, two months before Bonnie’s murder, and was returned to jail on a probation violation in November, two months after the murder.

Dion left Alaska sometime in 1996 and returned home to New Hampshire and to his old ways. In February 2003, after committing five robberies the previous year, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Three-and-a-half years later, DNA linked Kenneth Dion to Bonnie Craig’s murder.

Kenneth Dion

When first questioned by authorities, Dion claimed he had never met Bonnie Craig. When confronted with the DNA evidence, however, he changed his tune, saying he had had consensual sex with her. Dion was also a wanderer as his wife said he was not at home during the last week of September 1994, and he had no alibi for the day of Bonnie’s murder.

None of Bonnie’s family or friends knew Dion, and it is likely she had never met him either. Her murder appeared to have been a crime of opportunity.

Dion probably abducted Bonnie at the bus stop. Karen does not believe her daughter would have accepted a ride from a stranger, particularly from an older man. He likely killed Bonnie by striking her with martial arts weapons he often had in his car.

A Killer Who Wanders

In June 2011, Kenneth Dion was convicted of the rape and murder of Bonnie Craig.

In October, he was sentenced to one-hundred-twenty-four years in prison; ninety-nine years for first degree murder and an additional twenty-five years for first degree sexual assault. His conviction was upheld in February 2015.

Guilty

Some lingering questions, however, still remain regarding the murder of Bonnie Craig.

An anonymous caller to the Crimestoppers hotline claimed to have seen Bonnie talking to two men inside a vehicle at the bus stop on the morning of September 28. The caller did not pay much attention and could not recall any details of the men or of the car.

Some have speculated one of the men was Kenneth Dion and the other was the student who was investigated in Bonnie’s murder. The student had recently been accused of assault and his bail was paid by a man who had been involved in a fatal shooting in Anchorage several years before. I could not find what became of the student’s assault charge.

Investigators, however, found no evidence that Kenneth Dion and the student knew each other. Nothing I found suggested the second man could be Bonnie’s boyfriend or that he had any involvement in her murder.

Investigators believe Kenneth Dion is the sole person involved in the murder of Bonnie Craig.

Justice Served, but Questions Linger

Bonnie’s mother, now known as Karen Foster, wrote a book, Justice for Bonnie, about her daughter’s murder.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8080125

 

SOURCES:

• Anchorage Daily News
• Fairbanks Daily News
• KTTU TV NBC Affiliate Anchorage Channel 2
• Sitka Daily Sentinel
• Unsolved Mysteries