Alaska State Troopers say they have taken a 14-year-old boy into custody as a suspect in the homicide death of 13-year-old Mackenzie Howard, whose body was found in the small Southeast Alaska village of Kake earlier this month.
Troopers are not identifying the boy, also from Kake, because he is a minor. He was transported to a Juvenile Justice holding facility in Ketchikan on Saturday, according to a dispatch posted on the state Troopers’ website. Troopers say they also cannot release the charges pending against the boy.
The arrest comes eleven days after Howard’s body was found in an entryway to Kake Memorial Presbyterian Church late in the evening of February 5th. A large memorial service for community elder Clarence Jackson with out-of-town guests was held at the church earlier that day.
Almost immediately Troopers and officials from the Alaska Bureau of Investigation began treating Howard’s death as a homicide, which was later confirmed by an autopsy performed by the state Medical Examiner’s office.
According to the Trooper dispatch, interviews and evidence review, combined with information provided by the State of Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, helped identify the suspect.
