Death of 13-year-old Alaska Native girl treated as a homicide

Friday, February 8, 2013  

Authorities are treating the death of a 13-year-old Alaska Native girl as a homicide.

The body of Mackenzie H. Howard was found inside a church in Kake, a largely Tlingit community, on Tuesday night. Few details about the crime have been released.

Mackenzie was in the seventh grade. She was a straight-A student and loved to play sports, family members said.

“She was always laughing,” Mackenzie’s sister Miranda James-McGraw, 22, told The Juneau Empire. “She had a huge goofy personality, she could brighten anyone’s day. She would always brighten my day.”

Kake is a small community of about 600 residents. There was an influx of people earlier in the week due to a memorial service on Tuesday for Clarence Jackson, an Alaska Native corporation board member.

The memorial was held in the same church were Mackenzie was found.

Get the Story:
Family members remember Mackenzie Howard (The Juneau Empire 2/8)
Vigils planned to mourn 13-year-old girl’s death (KCAW 2/8)
Troopers: Kake girl's death a homicide (The Anchorage Daily News 2/7)