Youngest Alaskan woman convicted of murder could see case reexamined under new Court of Appeals ruling

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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