The totality of events became obvious pretty quickly that this was suspicious.

This was totally out of character for her to disappear like this and not check in with family or friends. As I recall from pretty early on,

they believe something had happened to her. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

I'm Anaseika Nikaalazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of investigation discoveries true conviction.

And this is anatomy of murder.

When a violent crime occurs, of course we want and need answers.

Whether you're the law enforcement being counted on to solve it or a family member that deserves the truth. It's incredibly hard to be patient.

But in reality, many cases require some amount of time spent waiting for the answers, whether that be days, weeks, months, years.

Today's guest knows that firsthand.

Yeah, my name is Randy McFerrin. I was with the Alaska State Troopers from 1986 until 2012, retired from active service then.

And in 2013 was hired with the Cole Case Unit

as kind of like a special commission officer.

And that's all they did was where Cole cases. These kinds of cases can take decades to solve,

and sometimes those files never get closed.

With today's episode, answers weren't easy to come by.

It took years of investigative work, science, and hope to get them.

For this story, we're going to Alaska.

The year was 1996, and at the time time there were about 8,400 people living there in a remote

coastal town called Sitka. It's on an island you know you can only get there by boat or

plane people make their living off of commercial

fishing and tourism and stuff like that. It's a beautiful place. The climate's pretty wet.

You have to get used to a lot of the rain and southeast Alaska, but like anything you adapt to it.

...