ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – After the murder of three Anchorage residents — a husband, wife and the wife’s sister — in 1985, Winona Fletcher was sentenced to 135 years in prison for her role in the grisly killings.
She was charged in the case when she was just 14 years old.
Now, following a new court of appeals ruling, she has the chance to have her case reexamined.
Last year, the Alaska Court of Appeals found that when sentencing juvenile defendants, the trial courts must consider on the record how juveniles are fundamentally different from adults.
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On Aug. 9 of this year, the appeals court came to the conclusion that that decision is to be retroactive, and thus should also apply to past offenders — including Fletcher.
“We agree with the superior court’s conclusion that the Fletcher decision should be fully retroactive to those cases on collateral review, where juvenile offenders have received the functional equivalent of a life without parole sentence,” the ruling stated.
Fletcher and her 19-year-old boyfriend were sentenced for the murders of Tom Faccio, 69; his wife, Ann Faccio, 70; and Ann’s sister, Emelia Elliot, who was 75 years old at the time of her death.
With the conviction in the case, Fletcher was the youngest female to ever be convicted of murder in Alaska.
Fletcher’s attorney, Marcy McDannel, said that the state’s court of appeals is following a broader national trend regarding harsher sentences given to youth offenders, which she said started with the U.S. Supreme Court. She said that while Alaska is far from the forefront — and is actually lagging behind — she believes the state is unquestionably moving in the right direction.
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“This decision recognizes the science that says that children don’t have fully developed brains and are very much at the mercy of their environment,” McDannel said. “That has a huge impact on their behavior, and that needs to be taken into consideration when deciding how we treat children, even when they’ve done something terrible.”
Suki Miller, however, disagrees. Miller serves as the executive director of Victims For Justice, which was founded in 1985 by Janice Faccio Lienhart and Sharon Faccio Nahorney, the two daughters of Tom and Ann Faccio.
Miller said that every time there is a new hearing of any kind, it retraumatizes victims and their family members, making the process of moving forward and healing nearly impossible.
“They’re always talking about, maybe, that they’ve been in there for a long time,” Miller said. “Victims are dead for a long time, they don’t come back, they don’t get second chances, they don’t get hearings, they’re gone.
“So it’s really hard for victims to go through that, and hear the different types of rehabilitation that the offender was able to have when their loved ones will never have that chance.”
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Resentencing for Fletcher under the new criteria is currently scheduled for December 2024.
McDannel, who said Fletcher’s original sentence is now unconstitutional under Alaska statute, said the state is making efforts to have the Alaska Supreme Court review the court of appeals’ decision before the resentencing, which could potentially hold the process up for an undetermined amount of time.
She added that she’s hopeful the courts will allow the process to move forward, to give Fletcher the benefit of the appeals court’s ruling.
The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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