SAD CONCLUSION

HOUSTON — Knowing her sister has been found has brought a degree of closure for Devon Lee.

But it’s an odd kind of closure. One mystery is solved, but a host of other questions remain unanswered.

Lee’s sister was found a week ago in a wooded area off King Arthur Drive. A neighborhood dog had brought the woman’s skull home and Alaska State Troopers tracked it back to the body.

Troopers called Lee soon after, asking questions about her sister, Donnay Box, but not saying for sure the remains were hers. By Wednesday afternoon investigators were ready to make an announcement. Lee rounded up her family and they all sat down with troopers to hear the news.

Lee said Box had been missing since October 2008. Well, that’s not quite accurate. That was when the family had last heard from her, but there had been sightings of Box here and there. And a Palmer police officer had called Lee to say her sister had been the passenger in a car stopped in May 2009 on Bogard Road.

She said the family put up fliers around the Valley for a time and looked into buying a newspaper advertisement to help locate the wayward sister. But eventually, with those sporadic sightings, their enthusiasm for finding her just kind of dissipated.

“We had kind of drawn the conclusion that she didn’t want to be found. She was hiding,” Lee said.

Lee regrets letting up in her attempts to find her sister, but is trying not to dwell on what she could have done better.

The oddest thing about Box’s disappearance is where she was found. The last time the family heard from Box, Lee said, she was at a party on King Arthur Drive. Someone she didn’t want to see had showed up so she decided to leave. Box told some people there she was going to hitchhike into Anchorage to get her child. And now her remains have been discovered within walking distance of that house.

From the spot she was found, Lee said, “You could spit on the property where she went missing from.”

So the question remains: Was Lee’s sister actually in that car pulled over on Bogard Road? Lee says that’s the only sighting that has actual credibility. Were it not for that one sighting, Lee would have discounted the rest.

Lee said she wonders if her sister left that house but returned days or weeks later. But it also could be that Box had been in those woods all this time.

Troopers may have solved that mystery but are declining to comment.

Troopers have said previously that Box’s body had been there for some time. Sgt. Michelyn Manrique with the troopers’ Alaska Bureau of Investigation said dental records were used to identify the body. Manrique also said it is possible to examine remains and come up with an estimate of how long they have been exposed to the elements. She said that kind of evidence was available in Box’s case, but that she couldn’t reveal what that evidence shows.

Another mystery revolves around how Box died.

Lee said her sister was a kind and generous soul, but that she also had her demons.

“If somebody was cold they probably got the coat off of her back,” she said. “But the bigger heart that you got the more hurt you get. The more hurt you get you kind of look for things to numb you. She made some bad decisions.”

She said her sister got tied up in drugs and drinking. Lee also believes the house she left on King Arthur Drive was a party pad.

Could her sister have just passed out drunk in the woods unprepared to sleep outside in the wintertime? Or is there something more sinister at work? Troopers just don’t know yet.

“We’re still investigating, still looking into whether or not there was foul play,” Manrique said.

Lee said the family has been kicking around ideas on what to do as a way to memorialize Box. A full-on memorial service likely isn’t possible until the state medical examiner has released Box’s remains. In the meantime, they might have some kind of a memorial barbecue or gathering with a photo of Box to remember her.

Those kinds of plans are on hold, for now at least, until Lee resolves some of these mysteries. So she’s decided to focus on trying to prod that investigation along.

Lee said she wants to “put the word out. Somebody’s seen here. Somebody knows her. Somebody knows how she ended up on that property.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.