A new documentary series takes a close look at the murders of three Alaska Native women, Veronica Abouchuk, Kathleen Jo Henry and Cassandra Boskofsky, and the Anchorage serial killer connected to their cases.
One of the experts featured in “Lost Women of Alaska” is Dr. Michael Livingston, a local historian, advocate for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, and retired homicide detective who has spent nearly 50 years working in Alaska law enforcement. Livingston is Unangax̂ and started his law enforcement career in Unalaska in 1978.
Livingston said he had never seen anything like Boskofsky’s case. In 2019, the serial killer portrayed in the series was arrested with graphic images of a woman on his phone — yet the Anchorage Police Department never distributed them. It took community advocates digging through court documents to identify the woman as Boskofsky. Her murderer was never charged.
In an email to KUCB, Livingston called the detective’s inaction “cruel and unusual,” saying the family was called only once a year for five years and was never told the photographs existed.
For this episode of Island Interviews, KUCB’s Sofia Stuart-Rasi spoke with Livingston about the series, the cases and what he thinks law enforcement needs to do differently to better protect Alaska Native women.
“Lost Women of Alaska” premiered Feb. 25 on Investigation Discovery and is now available to stream on HBO Max and Discovery Plus.
