The Investor Murders

Part One: A Tragedy in Craig, AK

On the afternoon of September 7th, 1982, a ship anchored just outside of Craig, Alaska was consumed by fire. As investigators began to look over the crime scene, it became apparent that this was no accident…

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Craig is a very small town in southeastern Alaska, with a population of around 1300, which has remained pretty static for the past few decades. This makes sense when you factor in the location of Craig: about 220 miles south of Alaska's capital, Juneau, and about 60 miles northwest of Ketchikan, Alaska's southeasternmost settlement. Despite being a very small town, Craig is the most populated town on Prince of Wales Island, the fourth largest island, geographically, in the United States; but is accessible only by boat or plane.

Craig is known primarily among those in the commercial fishing industry, who often travel through Craig while heading to or from Alaskan shores to the Pacific Northwest. This applies in particular to those involved in the salmon trade, which brought out many of Craig's longtime residents to this region throughout the 20th century, and remains one of the town's biggest industries to this day.

While Craig, Alaska may not seem like much - just a waypoint on a map, in an area that most will never visit (unless they are involved in maritime industries or big game hunting) - it has earned its place in state history for the most harrowing of reasons. Craig is where the largest mass-murder in Alaska occurred nearly four decades ago, which - despite leading to one of Alaska's most drawn-out and expensive criminal trials - remains unsolved to this day.

On the afternoon of September 7th, 1982, it was discovered that a ship - anchored in a lonely harbor about one mile outside of Craig - had caught fire. The smoke billowing out of its sides ultimately led to its discovery at around 4:30 that afternoon. Hours later, after the flames had been extinguished, first responders would discover several charred remains: the bodies of at least four people, which had been burned beyond recognition, but it was initially theorized that as many as nine people could have been on board at the time of the fire... a fire whose origins remained clouded in doubt.

As arson investigators began to look over the crime scene, it became apparent that this was no accident; the fire had been intentionally started by someone looking to cover up their misdeeds. The culprit had most likely not been any of the ship's occupants - the owner of the ship, his wife and two kids, or four young crewman - but a mysterious individual, who killed everyone aboard and then set the vessel ablaze, before fleeing the scene and leaving behind the largest mystery in Alaskan history.

This is the story of the Investor murders.

On the afternoon of Sunday, September 5th, 1982, a 58-foot fishing vessel known as the Investor pulled into the port of Craig, Alaska.

The ship was owned and captained by 28-year-old Mark Coulthurst from Blaine, Washington, who'd just recently purchased the ship for more than $750,000. Despite his age, Coulthurst had crafted a reputation for himself as a hardworking young man who had been working in the maritime industry since he was sixteen years old, finding almost-instantaneous success as a commercial fisherman. This had resulted in him being in a position to purchase his own state-of-the-art fishing vessel before he was thirty, and Mark had spoken openly about his plan to retire by the age of fifty.

On this voyage, Mark had been joined by seven others, including his wife and children, as well as four crewmen. Sailing into Craig alongside Mark were his 28-year-old wife Irene, who was three months pregnant; his five-year-old daughter Kimberly, who was set to start kindergarten within a week; and his young son John, who had just celebrated his fourth birthday a few weeks prior.

The other four members of the crew were all deckhands; young men that were capable of working alongside Mark and doing all of the painstaking-yet-rewarding work that was included in salmon fishing. These young men were Chris Heyman, who was just days away from his 18th birthday; Dean Moon, a 19-year-old that had been a football star at Blaine High School; Jerome Keown, a 19-year-old honor student at Seattle University, who also lived in Blaine and had joined the crew roughly one week prior; and Michael Stewart, Mark's 19-year-old cousin, who was looking forward to starting his sophomore year at Washington State University that Fall.

All four of these young men had been specifically chosen by Mark because he knew them and got along well with them, and not only trusted them to work alongside him on his nearly $1 million fishing vessel, but he trusted them to live among his family, who had joined the crew just a week or two prior and were scheduled to return home on Monday. In the meantime, though, they were living alongside the crew on the brand-new fishing vessel, which stood out among the other ships in port that weekend.

The 58-foot Investor was hauling roughly 77,000 pounds of salmon, which Mark and his crew had managed to haul in during the preceding week. He was hoping to offload this haul for north of $30,000, none of which would be in cash; Mark refused to deal with cash-only industries, and for that reason, barely even carried cash while out at sea. He and his crew would offload their catch later that afternoon but were not able to be paid for it until the following day, due to a couple of technicalities (Alaska's Department of Fish & Game had temporarily closed the commercial salmon fishing season a week prior, but were set to reopen it that Monday). This meant that the Coulthurst family would have to hang out in Craig for a day or so, alongside Mark's four crew members.

After unloading the ship's salmon haul, the Investor pulled into Craig's North Cove Dock, and the ship was tied to the dock; or, rather, it was tied up to a pair of ships that were, in turn, tied to the dock. The Defiant and the Decade were tied onto the dock, and the Investor's crews would latch onto them in port. This meant that those aboard the Investor would have to walk across the other two ships to get onto the dock (and then into town), but thankfully, Mark and his crew already had a good working relationship with both, so this wasn't a problem (it's worth pointing out that the Decade was owned by Clyde Curry, the brother of Mark Coulthurst's business partner, John Curry).

After latching onto the other two ships early that evening, those aboard the Investor began to disembark to take advantage of what little Craig had to offer at the time. Jerome Keown and Dean Moon, two of Mark's deckhands, went ashore to make some phone calls, grab a couple of drinks, and in one case, purchase some weed from a deckhand on another ship (but that's something I'll get back to later). It's not known if the other two deckhands, Mike Stewart and Chris Heyman, left the ship that night, but no one in Craig would remember definitively seeing them that night, so it's possible that they just remained aboard the ship.

It's worth pointing out, at this point, that the Craig locals were not familiar with Mark Coulthurst or his crew members. He typically didn't sail through Craig on his way to or from Alaska, and had not been there yet in his new ship, the Investor; only deciding to do so now because it was convenient, and because his family was set to fly back to Washington state that Monday. So the people in town didn't really know Mark or his crew, but they were friendly with many of the other fishing crews, and Mark, in particular, was a familiar face to many of the other commercial fishermen in Craig that night.

That evening, the Coulthurst family would have dinner at Ruth Ann's Restaurant, which at the time, was one of Craig's few restaurants. They were celebrating Mark's 28th birthday, which - coincidentally - happened to be that day (September 5th). While at the restaurant, Mark would write a check to a friend that was in town, allowing him to borrow $100 in cash to pay for the meal. Mark typically didn't carry much cash while out at sea, and this would later indicate to authorities that this meant no cash whatsoever (like the purchase of marijuana by one of Mark's deckhands, this would come into play later on).

Witnesses stated that the Coulthurst family was at the restaurant until roughly 9:30 PM, before paying their bill and returning to their ship parked just off of the dock. While crossing over the two ships onto their own, they were spotted by a crewman aboard the Decade, who recalled four-year-old John Coulthurst popping into his ship's pilothouse to say hello briefly, before turning in for the night.

That night, the crew aboard the Decade were throwing a party - celebrating the end of salmon season - and would be up drinking until the early morning hours while a storm started raging outside. During these vital hours, they would not notice anyone moving across the deck of their ship, heading to the Investor, which was tied to the other side of them.

That last sighting of the Coulthurst family - just before 10:00 PM, after leaving the restaurant in town - would be the last time that anyone aboard the Investor would be seen alive.

On the morning of Monday, September 6th, 1982, things were quiet throughout Craig, Alaska, and would continue to be so through the day. But as the sun just began rising that morning, a few witnesses would recall seeing a few odd things concerning Mark Coulthurst's fishing vessel, which had been in port for just a little over twelve hours.

At 6:30, a crewman aboard the Decade noticed the Investor slowly idling away from the dock, as if the two ships had been disconnected and the current was just slowly pulling the large ship out to the port. Sure enough, it would later be discovered that the Investor's expensive tie-down lines - which had originally connected the two ships, to prevent the Investor from floating away - had been left aboard the deck of the Decade, which struck crewmen as being rather odd; after all, these were expensive lines that ships would typically reuse again and again. This crewman would notice a man in the pilothouse of the Investor, steering the ship away, and he waved to this man, whom he assumed was Mark Coulthurst, because of the man's similar gait and size. Unsurprisingly, the man waved back, but that was just about all that this crewman could make out through the glass obscuring the two.

It was later reported that the main engine of the Investor was not running at this time; which would indicate to some, later on, that this wasn't Mark or another member of his crew. Typically, crews wouldn't start pulling away from a dock unless they had the engine running, as they could properly guide their path away from other ships and objects in the water. Doing so without any engine indicated that the person in the pilothouse was attempting to drift away silently... as if they didn't want to be noticed.

About 15 minutes later, at around 6:45, the captain of the Decade, Clyde Curry, came onto deck and recalls seeing a man aboard the deck of the departing Investor, which was slowly drifting out into the harbor. We can only assume that this was the same man seen by Clyde's crewman just minutes prior, but neither man thought much of the encounter at the time; they just assumed that the Investor was heading out to take advantage of the reopened salmon season. Clyde would later describe this man as being of average height but stocky build, with light brown or blonde hair, and wearing a black-and-red plaid wool jacket, but that was all that he could make out from this distance.

About 45 minutes later, at around 7:30, a crewmember of another ship saw the Investor begin to settle near Fish Egg Island, a small island across the harbor, about one mile away from Craig. It appeared like the ship had been anchored, as it began settling to a standstill, and did not appear to be moving or drifting anywhere at the time. But just like the others, this crewmember didn't think anything of it at the time; not thinking that anything untoward might have been afoot.

At some point during this ordeal, the Investor's skiff - a smaller ship used to ferry its crew and provisions back and forth from town - ended up being tied to Craig's main dock. It would be seen by several people in town, who - again - thought nothing of it and just assumed that someone from the ship had forgotten to grab something before leaving.

Later that morning, a heavy fog would begin to roll into the area, as salmon season officially opened up for the final time that year. Amidst the hustle and bustle from the other ships in Craig - all of whom were eager to wrap up the fishing season and return to their homes and families in the lower 48 - the Investor was all-but-forgotten about... but would soon become the unforgettable talk of the town.

The following morning - Tuesday, September 7th - the fog that had been lingering in and around Craig, Alaska began to lift. With it, locals and those still in port were surprised to see that the Investor was still anchored in the harbor, about a mile away from the dock, near Fish Egg Island. Everyone had expected the ship to join the others heading out to take advantage of the final days of salmon season, before heading back down to Bellingham, Washington (where the ship was docked during the off-season).

It was unknown to locals at the time, but Mark's pregnant wife Irene was supposed to have flown back to Washington that Monday, along with the couple's two kids, to get five-year-old Kimberly ready for kindergarten (which started later that week). However, she had missed her flight, and there had been no sign of life from the Investor since it sailed away from the dock early that Monday morning; piloted by a mysterious man that remained unidentified but had seemed familiar with the ship.

That morning, a young man was seen purchasing two-and-a-half gallons of gasoline in Craig itself, leaving with it aboard the Investor's parked skiff, which had unceremoniously remained parked on the Craig dock (a description of this young man would come into dispute later on, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it).

At around 4:00 PM, a troller named Casino - which had been docked in Craig - noticed smoke coming from the direction of the Investor, which remained anchored near Fish Egg Island. Crewmembers of the Casino would inform the Alaskan State Troopers from nearby Ketchikan about this potential fire, and began heading out towards the smoking ship anchored about a mile away. Hoping to help stymie the blaze and help the Investor's occupants (if at all possible) the crew of the Casino would pass by a young man wearing a dark baseball cap, who was heading towards Craig aboard the Investor's skiff.

This young man spoke to the Casino's crewmembers briefly, before continuing onto Craig under the guise of seeking help. A few minutes later, this man would arrive at Craig's dock, where he spoke to at least three people, acting as if he was seeking help for the smoking vessel. Those that interacted with this young man describe him as being a slight man with a scarred or pockmarked face, but didn't pay much attention to him at the time - their attention was focused on the fire consuming the Investor, which seemed to be growing more out of control with every passing moment.

It's worth pointing out that the Investor's skiff would be found tied to a dock nearby, abandoned and undamaged. Whoever this young man was, he managed to slip away in the chaos of these vital moments.

As the crewmembers of the Casino arrived at the flaming wreck, they began doing their best to put out the roaring flames, which they were woefully unprepared and unequipped for. The fire had engulfed the pilothouse of the Investor, and the crew of the Casino were joined by some locals over the next couple of hours before they were joined by Alaska State Troopers from Klawock (as well as members of the local Craig P.D. and some other volunteers). Together, this ragtag group of first responders would work to extinguish the blaze over the next several hours, before finally being joined by two water-pumps from the U.S. Coast Guard, which were flown out to the scene that evening.

As the fire began to die down, emergency personnel boarded the burned-out husk of the Investor to scope for any potential survivors, and discovered at least four sets of human remains - which had been burned beyond all recognition, but pointed to absolute tragedy falling upon those aboard. It was initially believed that an accidental fire had broken out and killed those aboard, but at the moment, nobody knew who, exactly, had been aboard the craft when the fire broke out.

Authorities began to probe the scene, looking for a potential cause of the fire and began removing the sets of human remains from the craft. However, as they did so, flames would break out again, delaying the recovery efforts and making it hard to determine just how many people had been aboard the Investor when the fire broke out. While emergency personnel would eventually quell the flames over the next several hours, heading into the morning of September 8th, the four bodies recovered from the Investor were sent to Anchorage to be identified... and for investigators to determine an official cause-of-death, which would end up putting a much darker spin on the story than originally thought.

On Thursday, September 9th, autopsies would be performed on at least two out of the four bodies that had been recovered from the burning Investor. These bodies, which would be identified as 28-year-olds Mark and Irene Coulthurst, showed signs of having been murdered before the fire, with forensic examinations revealing gunshot wounds to the head. These were described as not being to the back of the head - or "execution-style," in other words - but investigators would never quite elaborate on what that meant.

A spokeswoman for the Alaska State Troopers (the investigative body that headed this investigation) told reporters later that day:

"Preliminary indications are that Mark and Irene Coulthurst were victims of homicide and possibly may have died prior to the fire."

To officials, this cemented the belief that the fire had been a work of arson; not an accidental fire, as had been originally posited by some. Arson investigators at the scene had already begun speculating that the ship had been intentionally set ablaze, due to the fire originating at the front of the craft, where the living quarters were (and where the bodies had been found); as opposed to the rear, where the ship's diesel fuel was stored (and where accidental fires would likely break out).

To add on to this, John Coulthurst - Mark's father, and a co-owner of the ship - would tell reporters with the Daily Sitka Sentinel that investigators were "reasonably sure it's arson" due to the Investor being "a 750,0000 to 800,000 (dollar) boat" that was "designed not to burn." Any widespread fire would have had to have been intentionally started, because of the way the ship had been designed.

Investigators theorized that the fire had been started to cover up the crime - disposing of the evidence and the victim's bodies - likely well after the victims aboard the craft had been killed. Perhaps even an entire day later, due to the presumably quick spread on September 7th, which was more than 24 hours after the Investor had slowly drifted away from the dock in Craig, piloted by a mysterious individual seen in the ship's pilothouse.

Based on evidence recovered at the scene, it was believed that the culprit(s) of this vile act had first attempted to scuttle the ship, opening up the seacocks and attempting to sink the craft near Fish Egg Island, where it had been anchored on the morning of September 6th. However, they had likely discovered the ship still floating a day later, on September 7th (after the fog lifted), and decided to return to the ship to set it on fire - using an accelerant that spread the flames quickly, allowing it to burn for several hours.

While this seemed like a likely series of events, it didn't explain why the crime had happened - or why the individual(s) involved had waited so long to set the Investor on fire. Sergeant Charles Miller of the Alaska State Troopers, who oversaw the investigation during this early period, would tell reporters with People Magazine months later:

"Every time I pursue something, I keep coming up short. There's always something that doesn't fit. One thing that has stuck in my craw is why the murderer didn't burn the boat right away, or at night when there was darkness to cover his escape? There must have been some compelling reason that caused him to do it in broad daylight."

In the days that would follow this tragic discovery, investigators would continue to scan through the crime scene: the burned wreckage of the Investor itself - which, thankfully, was no longer spewing flame, but had become a burned-out husk of a mystery. Authorities would tow the wreck to a shore nearby to prevent it from sinking, but the damage had been done... the ship more closely resembled the embers leftover from a funeral pyre than a workable crime scene.

After painstakingly sifting through the ashes, investigators would recover bones and bone fragments from at least three additional bodies. These would be sent to crime labs in Anchorage, where they were compiled into partial reconstructions, which would then be sent off for additional analysis and potential identification.

In the meantime, authorities were able to identify a third victim from the crime scene: five-year-old Kimberly Coulthurst, the daughter of Mark and Irene, who had been one of the first four bodies recovered from the Investor on the evening of September 7th. Unlike her parents, however, it could not be determined whether she had also been a shooting victim, due to the decomposed state of her remains. She would be followed just days later by 19-year-old Mike Stewart, Mark's cousin and one of his deckhands, whose mother confirmed the following week that he had been ID'd as the fourth body originally pulled from the craft.

Experts were reasonably certain that the three other partial bodies they had recovered belonged to the Investor's remaining crewmen - Chris Heyman, Dean Moon, and Jerome Keown - but they would struggle to confirm the remains as theirs. Of the bones and bone fragments that had been recovered, most had been extensively damaged by the fire, and the process of matching them up with the young crewman would prove to be virtually impossible in the weeks and months to come. Jerome Keown would eventually be confirmed as the fifth victim of the Investor murders, due to a piece of jawbone that was linked to Keown through dental records (albeit loosely), but he would be the last confirmed victim of this tragedy, with the fate of the other two crewmen (Chris Heyman and Dean Moon) remaining a point of contention moving forward.

Another large question mark comes in the form of four-year-old John Coulthurst, the son of the Investor's captain and his wife. It was believed that John had died aboard the burning ship, but it was theorized that his body had been left in the epicenter of where the fire had been started, and his body had burned to ash, leaving nothing behind for investigators to find. This would be the working theory moving forward for investigators, who struggled to make sense of this savage crime.

Aboard the burned-out husk of the Investor, investigators would find a .223 Ruger rifle - which was initially theorized to have been the murder weapon - but FBI technicians would be unable to make out much from the bullet fragments recovered from the crime scene (simply because they were so damaged). As such, authorities would not be able to initially reveal what type of weapon had been used in the murders, but would later reveal - after more extensive testing had taken place - that Mark and Irene Coulthurst had been shot with a .22-caliber firearm.

Even though authorities would only be able to identify the cause-of-death in two of the five confirmed murders (that of Mark and Irene Coulthurst), investigators believed that all eight victims had been killed before the fire was started. Of the bodies recovered, none showed any signs of carbon monoxide having been trapped in their lungs, which indicated that all of the known victims (whose remains were recovered) had died of gunshot wounds or other similar means. But due to the destroyed state of their remains - as well as the crime scene around them - it would be difficult to confirm that moving forward.

Investigators would struggle to hone in on a motive for the crimes, which remains one of the major points of contention today. While it was believed that the killer(s) had boarded the Investor at some point on the evening of Sunday, September 5th, 1982, it was unknown how they had gotten there - or what their intentions had been.

While initial reports from the media indicated that police were following up on leads involving drugs or robbery, it was more widely speculated that the killer(s) had some kind of personal connection to at least one of the victims aboard the Investor. Investigators would publicly theorize that - after boarding the ship - the killer(s) had gotten into a violent argument with at least one person, ending the argument with the use of a firearm. This then led to them using the firearm on the other seven people aboard the vessel, being unable to stop for fear of leaving witnesses. Because of the loud party going on aboard the neighboring ship, the Decade, the killer(s) might have felt comfortable using this firearm without the fear of being seen or heard.

Speaking to this theory, an anonymous source would tell the Bellingham Herald about this theory regarding a violent argument quickly spilling out of hand:

"There may have been some grievances building up that preceded it. But the first shooting appears to have been sparked by a spontaneous confrontation, an emotional outburst."

Following the murder of the eight people aboard the Investor, the killer(s) might have stayed aboard the ship until the following morning; collecting his or her thoughts and figuring out what they would do next, before deciding to quietly drift off into the harbor, where the Investor was later anchored near Fish Egg Island. Here, they attempted to scuttle the ship, leaving it in the thick fog that had rolled into the area, and hoping that the ship would sink without attracting any attention.

Using the Investor's skiff, the killer(s) had then gone back to Craig, only to find the Investor still floating the following morning, September 7th. At this point, panic had possibly started to set in, and they had decided to purchase gasoline at a shop in Craig - where they were spotted by at least one witness - before returning to the Investor and setting it on fire. After this, they abandoned the vehicle aboard the same skiff and were spotted that afternoon by crewmembers of the Casino as well as some other Craig locals, who mistook him for a member of the Investor's crew seeking help.

From here, this young man would disappear forever, leaving behind the Investor's skiff, which was found tied to a dock in Craig. Investigators believed that he then left the area aboard another fishing vessel - perhaps being a part of a crew that left to take advantage of the recently-reopened salmon season, or hitching a ride with another crew headed back to the lower 48.

Over the next few months, investigators would travel back-and-forth between Craig and northwestern Washington state - the area near Bellingham and Blaire, where many of the salmon fishing crews came from - and would interview dozens of potential witnesses and persons of interest... any of whom may have been the killer.

By November of 1982, this case had started to fade from the headlines but remained just as relevant to those that had known or cared for the victims - all of whom were left without answers in the wake of this mass murder. Alaska State Trooper Captain Mike Kolivosky would speak to this trauma while telling reporters:

"The investigation is out of the headline category, but we're working just as hard. This is still a full-blown investigation, but there's nothing new."

A $15,000 reward had been compiled by fisherman and others with a vested interest in solving the crime - worried that the killer could be anyone among them. At this point, a sketch of the potential suspect had been distributed to fishing vessels throughout the Pacific Northwest, with it being theorized that the young man seen aboard the Investor's skiff (before beaching it in Craig) had left aboard one of the area's fishing vessels. Even though descriptions of this young man varied among certain witnesses, investigators had begun compiling all of this information into a single profile.

The profile released by investigators described the suspicious young man (believed to be the killer) as a young white man, in his late teens or early 20's, who stood somewhere between 5'9" and 6' tall, with a slim or average build (160 lbs., give or take a few), with slightly-long and unkempt blonde or light brown hair, a pockmarked or slightly-scarred complexion, and glasses with rectangular lenses. However, it's worth pointing out that this description wasn't entirely uniform among witnesses, with some describing this individual as appearing middle-aged, or even Native in appearance, but this is the description floated by law enforcement months after the murders.

The mayor of Craig, Lee Axmaker, who had been one of the witnesses who saw this individual believed to be the killer, said to local reporters:

"I was one of those who saw him, the guy in the skiff when we were down at the dock watching the fire. He was a cool character. He came up, talked to a few people, made a telephone call and left."

When asked about why he thought his witness statement had not been very helpful in tracking down this supposed killer, Axmaker responded:

"There were probably 500 guys in town at that time that looked just like him. You just don't pay any attention."

Because not all of the crewmembers had been successfully identified as the victims, it was initially theorized that one of them might have been responsible for the murders and the burning of the Investor. However, as cautioned by some of the officials overseeing the case, this was just a possibility - which investigators were unable to ignore or eliminate as a theory, due to the evidence made available to them (or, rather, the lack of any). Speaking to this, Alaska State Trooper Captain Mike Kolivosky told the press:

"We're now looking at the possibility that one of the guys had alienated someone, causing the guy to go off the deep end... Maybe he didn't intend to kill everyone, but it blossomed into that. Maybe someone felt cheated out of his fair share."

Despite there being a lot of enthusiasm in this case early on, the case would stagnate throughout the Fall of 1982 heading into 1983. Within a year, it had entered a relative standstill, with the leads drying up completely as the next salmon fishing season came and went. The lives of people in the area carried on, and the tragedy aboard the Investor seemed to become a footnote - even in Craig, Alaska.

By the Spring of 1984, the investigation was attempting to rejuvenate interest in the case. That March, four Alaska State Troopers arrived in Washington state to remind the public that while the case was still unsolved, they - the investigative body overseeing it - were not going to forget it happened. After arriving in Washington, they began speaking to numerous individuals that lived in Whatcom County (the same county that many of the victims had been from), who were involved in the somewhat-nomadic lifestyle of commercial fishing.

If you recall, salmon fishing had ended the week after the murders, so many of the people that had been in Craig at the time had gone home shortly thereafter... which only added to the disadvantage that investigators were already at. Now, they were revisiting some of their leads from early on, interviewing some people for the first time, and re-interviewing others. Many of the people that investigators spoke to during this period were suspects or POI's that investigators had been unable to eliminate in this case - which, at this point, had become the largest in Alaskan history.

A couple of months later, a presumptive death hearing would be held in an Alaskan court, which determined that all eight occupants aboard the Investor had been killed in the incident from September of 1982: this included all four members of the Coulthurst family and four crewmen, of whom, only five bodies had been recovered and identified. The other three - 4-year-old John Coulthurst and deckhands Chris Heyman and Dean Moon - were officially declared dead during this process, which allowed investigators to streamline their process. Now, they could cohesively build a case around a single outside killer, without having to investigate matters concerning the missing crewmen (whose remains were not officially identified).

By that summer, investigators had begun to narrow their search down to three suspects in particular; and then, within a month, down to just one - whom they had linked to the case through a large amount of circumstantial evidence, and had been unable to eliminate after thorough vetting. Lieutenant Robert Jent, the head of the Alaska State Troopers investigative bureau, told reporters that year:

"The whole thing is focusing on one individual, but we have nothing yet - no physical evidence - tying the individual to the case."

On September 10th, 1984 - just a few days after the second anniversary of the Investor murders - police announced that they were changing a man in the crime: John Kenneth Peel.

The 24-year-old Bellingham native had been a favorite suspect for quite some time and was officially taken into custody by Washington authorities at 7:15 that Monday morning. Authorities from Ketchikan, Alaska were charging him with all eight murders, and he would be arraigned later that day in Whatcom County, which his bail set for $1 million. Additionally, prosecutors were filing a motion to extradite Peel to Alaska, where - they hoped - the trial could take place. Even though the victims and suspect had lived in Washington, the crime itself had taken place in Alaska.

It was believed that John Peel, a young man who matched the suspect description released by authorities, had been familiar with both the Coulthurst family and the other crew members aboard the Investor. Peel had been a prior crewmember for Mark Coulthurst - having worked with him aboard his previous ship during the 1980 and 1981 fishing seasons - and it was believed by many that their relationship had soured in the months before the murders.

Even though Peel had eventually found work for another ship, it was believed that he had been fired by Coulthurst the prior summer, and it was reported by at least one witness that the two had encountered each other the evening of the alleged murders: September 5th, 1981. Peel was seen interacting with the Coulthurst family while they dined at Ruth Ann's Restaurant in Craig, and it was believed that this was their first encounter since the prior summer (when Peel was reportedly let go from Mark Coulthurst's crew).

In the two years since the Investor murders, John Peel had started a family with his wife, who had given birth to a son roughly one year prior. To be around for his family, he had become a shipbuilder in the Bellingham area, which allowed him to support his family without having to leave for months on-end. Paul Edscorn, a spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers, spoke vaguely about the specific circumstances that implicated Peel in the crime:

"He had served as a crew member for [Mark] Coulthurst in 1981, and he may have been in 1980, I don't know. In 1982, he was a crew member on another boat in Craig at the time of the homicide."

While John Peel didn't have any links to drugs or robbery (speculated motives in the crime), it was theorized by investigators that he had a strong personal motive against the Coulthurst family: revenge for having been fired the year prior. In court, Sergeant James Stogsdill, the Alaska State Trooper in charge of the investigation, said that:

"We think the motive was something spontaneous. We've ruled out robbery or drugs."

Without going into details, Stogsdill claimed that the "three-pronged case" against Peel was based on more than eyewitness accounts, but also featured strong components of physical and circumstantial evidence.

While police had initially discounted Peel as a suspect, due to multiple witnesses not identifying him as the man from the skiff - despite having several opportunities to do so - investigators had circled back to him after a couple of phone calls. At least two people that knew Peel called the tip-line established by authorities, letting them know that they should investigate Peel in the murders for several reasons. Roughly a year-and-a-half after the tragedy aboard the Investor, investigators began circling Peel once again, subjecting him to numerous interviews - as well as a polygraph, which he reportedly failed, proving nothing but raising suspicions for investigators.

Shortly after the arrest of John Peel, a grand jury would be assembled to evaluate all of the evidence that prosecutors had put together with the cooperation of the Alaska State Troopers, and decided to file a criminal indictment against Peel, officially charging him with all eight murders as well as one count of first-degree arson. An extradition warrant would be filed a day later, allowing Peel to be transported to Alaska, where the trial would take place.

In November of 1984, John Kenneth Peel was moved to the Ketchikan Correctional Center and was set to begin trial there in January of 1986, where he was facing twenty years in prison for the arson charge alone, as well as 99 years for each of the eight murders.

That's on the next episode of Unresolved.

continue to part two

Episode Information

Researched, written, hosted, and produced by Micheal Whelan

Published on September 20th, 2020

Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Brittany Norris, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Travis Scsepko, Thomas Ahearn, Seth Morgan, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Alyssa Lawton, Jo Wong, Meadow Landry, Rebecca Miller, Tatum Bautista, Teunia Elzinga, Jacinda B., Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, and Dawn Kellar