True Crime: Alaska

This adventure is just getting started! I have tens of thousands of pages in research materials. There's more to come, promise. Our goal is to reveal things that, while completely worthwhile, didn't necessarily make it into the book. Please be patient while I refill the pipeline! Chapters (00:00:00) - First Moves (00:00:01) - Going Deep

I start this episode with a question: Is it possible for someone to kidnap their own child? Now, of course, the answer is “yes.” It even has a name. Or multiple names. Depending on the jurisdiction, it’s considered custodial interference. Or abduction. Or, sometimes, just plain kidnapping. But… There’s always a but. Depending on where you look, the question starts to get muddy. Immediately so. And...

One year on, the Muriel Pfeil murder had birthed two parallel investigations. One, of course, was the investigation into Muriel’s murder. The second was the inquiry into Neil Mackay’s fitness to assume custody of Scotty Mackay. And fitness was the operative word. Muriel had already set the ground rules by openly declaring Neil Mackay unfit for parenthood. But both investigations were fraught. And...

One of the biggest challenges – risks? – of writing about true-crime are the parts that dig deep into the legal process. I’m thinking of a comment someone made about an early version of my book, “What Happened In Craig.” The comment? “The trial was boring.” Problem was, there were two trials in that book! Unfortunately, in this episode I’m about to go there again. Into the minutia of the legal pro...

You have no doubt noticed that Scotty has… sort of disappeared from our narrative. Yeah, you know, the “adults in the room” have taken over. Not that he has been forgotten. In fact, he’s at the center of things. But in that odd “he’ just a child” sort of way. With that said, I can add this: At this point in our story, Scotty is a mess. Here’s what psychiatrist Dr. Barry Mendelsohn -- someone who’d...

If you’ve been paying close attention – as I hope you have been – you’ll recall my mention of Fairbanks, Alaska. I’ve only been there once, but I’m reminded of what some acquaintances once told me. Asking if I’d ever been to Alaska, I answered “yes – Anchorage.” They scoffed. “If you haven’t been to Fairbanks, you haven’t been to Alaska.” And it’s in this town – Fairbanks – that Neil Mackay meets...

There’s an old saying… Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than smart… It is, of course, an inverted version of a more popular saying, which puts “smart” in the lead position. We won’t quibble here… Except to point out that two months after Muriel’s murder, authorities got the biggest break in the case so far. It seemed to come from an unexpected place. Not Anchorage. Not Fairbanks – where another v...

The first line of suspects in Muriel’s murder – the ones we talked about in the previous episode – can be roughly placed in the “speculative” bucket. Even, you might say, the deeply speculative bucket. As in… One by one, most of these folks eliminated themselves from consideration. And then back in Fairbanks… In mid-November of 1977, another abandoned vehicle was destroyed by an explosion. The wre...

“Whodunnit?” Okay, this is the obvious question, right? “Whodunnit?” That’s what everyone wants to know. So let’s start to unravel that question… And see how far we get. One thing up front: I’m going to stipulate that we’re talking premeditated murder. You don’t just casually walk up to a car and fill it with a bomb. It’s not a situation where, hey, somebody gets mad and grabs a gun and then says…...

There were always questions about Muriel Pfeil’s marriage to Neil Mackay. The age difference, for one. She was 33 when they married; he was 45. A twelve-year gap. Let's put that in other terms. He participated in World War II while she watched it from grade school. Now, that's not an impossible difference. Her own parents were separated by thirteen years. So yeah, she had an example. But often – p...

ERRATA: Fixed duplicate audio issue. When we  think of car bombs we often think politics. Of war by another name. The Irish Republican Army, fighting for independence. Of the Middle East and the warfare in that region. The Lebanese Civil War. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Iraqi insurgents. There’s also organized crime. By 1974, in fact, Cleveland, Ohio – Cleveland, Ohio – had become the leading site fo...

Among the dozens of phone calls made that day in September, two stand out. One to Robert Pfeil, Muriel's brother. He was in his garage. And, with his wife Marianne, they rushed to the crime scene. Suddenly, this devoted family man had a lot on his plate. At the crime scene, he talked briefly to investigators. Mentioned Neil Mackay. There was a tacit agreement. The cops would talk to Muriel's ex-hu...

On September 30, 1976, a vehicle explosion rocked downtown Anchorage. When the dust settled, Muriel Pfeil was trapped in the driver’s seat. Dead. An Anchorage native, she owned the most successful travel service in Alaska. Her messy divorce was well known in the community. She'd just received a three-quarters of a million dollar settlement. The final step in her divorce -- the final custody agreem...