Troopers mum on remains

MAT-SU — Officials are still trying to identify human remains found in the woods in Houston.

Alaska State Troopers tracked down the body after a neighborhood dog brought a skull home on Friday. The body appeared to have been there awhile, troopers said Saturday, but they didn’t say much else.

That silence continued Monday.

“We aren’t releasing anything new on the remains,” Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters says in an e-mailed response to inquiries about the case.

The body has been sent to the state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy. In an interview, Peters said the wait time on autopsy results is hard to gauge. The state medical examiners are a separate agency from the Alaska State Troopers.

“It just depends what their workload is, and I can’t make any promises for the other office,” Peters said.

Over at the Alaska Bureau of Investigation in Palmer, Sgt. Mike Burkmire said he couldn’t speak to the case. His colleague, Sgt. Michelyn Grigg is overseeing the probe and she had Monday off. He said a number of his officers put in long hours at the scene in Houston.

“They worked all day Friday and some days this weekend,” Burkmire said.

As for where the body was found, Houston Mayor Roger Purcell said it was near the home he’s currently living in on King Arthur Drive.

“I was with the troopers this morning, and even though I’ve been making no comment, they think that I’ve been leaking information to the press,” he said Monday. “I’m not even allowed to talk to you guys.”

He said he’s not sure if information is coming from the city, but he’s doing his utmost to patch any leaks.

Purcell said he respects the troopers’ wishes and understands their reasoning that this early in the case too much information in the public domain could damage the investigation.

Houston’s lone police officer, Charley McAnnally, did not return a call seeking comment.

One thing Purcell did say is that he’s not in any way suspected of having anything to do with the body. Judging by his tone, it was obvious the mayor, who is facing a recall election, felt it ridiculous he even had to make such a statement.

After all, he moved to the area relatively recently. But the political atmosphere in Houston has lately been poisonous and whenever his name comes up wild rumors start to circulate.

“If the sun stopped shining tomorrow it’d be my fault,” Purcell said.

Houston City Councilman Lee Himes said the scene on King Arthur that day was somewhat chaotic. There were lots of vehicles and some people without the good sense not to traipse into a potential crime scene.

He said the story of the skull has been on everyone’s minds in the Mat-Su borough’s least populous municipality. It’s taken the place of the city’s political turmoil, which, he said, has lately died down.

“We went three weeks without being in the newspaper or the TV,” Himes said. He bet a friend the peace and quiet in Houston wouldn’t last a month. He collected his $5 windfall on Monday.

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