Missing 10-year-old girl found dead in Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A 10-year-old girl has been found dead Friday, authorities said, more than a week after she was reported missing in a remote Inupiat Eskimo town on Alaska’s northwestern coast.
Alaska State Troopers said Ashley Johnson-Barr’s remains were found east of Kotzebue.
The girl was last seen playing with friends at a local park Sept. 6. Her cellphone was later found a half mile from Rainbow Park, in the opposite direction of her home in the community of 3,100 people.
The search included assistance from 17 FBI agents earlier this week. Troopers spokesman Jonathon Taylor says five of the agents left Kotzebue Thursday for other assignments.
The Alaska State Troopers are the lead agency in the case. No other information about the discovery of her body was immediately released.
Kotzebue, 26 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 550 miles northwest of Anchorage, is a regional hub for northwest Alaska villages.
The town is built on a 3-mile-long spit, and many there live a subsistence lifestyle far off the state’s limited road system, with 26 miles of local gravel roads used by vehicles in warmer months and snowmobiles in winter. The community has a chronically high unemployment rate, with the school district, state and local hospital among its major employers.
On Wednesday evening, dozens of locals gathered at Rainbow Park to pray and share hugs and tears over the missing girl, an honor student, Anchorage television station KTUU reported.
The girl’s father, Walter “Scotty” Barr, told KTUU TV in Kotzebue on Wednesday that he didn’t know about the prayer gathering beforehand.
“It goes to show the love of the community and everyone who has helped,” he said.
