Mystery at Bootleggers Cove

Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

Glen Klinkhart: I would tuck him into bed and he'd ask me every night. He'd say, you know, “Did you find Bethany?” And I’d say, “No, buddy, I didn't find her today. But I’m going to find her."

Little boys have a way of believing their fathers can do anything.

Of course, Glen Klinkhart's little boy had no idea how or why his question -- the question -- had come to torment his father.

The beginning of the whole strange business didn't seem so important that first night, May 4, 2003.

Glen Klinkhart: It was Sunday evening, sitting home with the family. I get the phone call. And it's my sergeant. And he basically says, "Oh, we've got a missing girl down at Bootlegger’s Cove." And I’m like, "OK."

Just about like any other missing person's report. And there are, God knows, lots of those in Anchorage, Alaska.

Glen Klinkhart: And told my wife, "I’ll be right back, -- she's probably just out with her friends."

Klinkhart is a police detective. Experience had long since taught him that most often people who are reported missing have chosen to disappear.

How could he know, driving through town to check on this missing young woman, that she was about to tear open an old wound, never fully healed even after 22 years.

Glen Klinkhart: That was something that I can't make any amends for. I can't fix. And yet, along comes Bethany.

Bethany Correira. That was her name, the missing woman.

She was 21-years-old. Bright, fun-loving, all-Alaskan.

They raise them tough here in the heart of Alaska; they have to. Winters are long, cold, dark. Many people here still subsist mostly on what they hunt or fish. Here is, or can be, a natural life.

Linda Correira: When we first got here, electricity and water was not a popular thing. So you were hauling water and chopping wood and kerosene lamps.

Billy and Linda Correira moved to the pioneer town of Talkeetna from Massachusetts in the '70s. They're among just 700 who live here, though the town bursts with cruisers and climbers in the summer months.

Talkeetna is the launching-off point to the one constant in life here: Mt. McKinley, the tallest peak in north America.

The Correiras raised two sons and two daughters in a log house Billy built with his own hands. And there by the pond, Linda home-schooled them all. She let them know they could do anything.

Havilah Correira: I don't think I realized it until I moved away from here and people would be like, “You can't do that. That's a guy's job." I think you learn to do a lot on your own.

Havilah Correira's big sister, Bethany, was a pistol.

Her father, Billy, remembers a story about that. He was showing his son, Jamin, how a mousetrap works -- by sticking his fingers in one. He didn't realize that a 6-year-old Bethany was watching from around the corner when he teased Jamin about giving it a try.

Bill Correira: Bethany comes running around the corner, says, "I will, I will." (laughter) And she sticks her finger right in there. And it slaps her finger. And Jamin looks at her and says, "Beth, does it hurt?" And she goes, “Mmmm, no." (laughter)

Keith Morrison, Dateline NBC: Are you all like that? Do you all sort of stick your fingers into things? (laughter)

Jamin Correira: No, not like that.

Bethany grew up fishing, kayaking, mountain climbing, and even played soccer and hockey on the boys' teams.

Linda Correira: It was tough sometimes, being her mom. (laughter) I mean, to see her playing hockey with the boys.

Keith Morrison: Was she a tomboy?

Havilah Correira: Oh, yeah. (laughter)

Locals joke that here in Alaska, the men are men -- and the women are, too.

But rugged self-sufficiency is a good thing here. People respected Bethany.

And then came that day, a day so momentous in the life of every parent, every child, when it was time in her case to leave this bit of cloistered paradise in the lee of Mt. McKinley and go off to college in Anchorage. And then what happened four days later... Well, as you will see, what happened four days later shook the earth around here.

In the spring of 2003, Bethany rented an apartment on M Street in Bootlegger’s Cove, a neighborhood right on the water in downtown Anchorage.

Linda Correira: It was really a nice place.

She had arranged her college classes; she was preparing to study medicine. She'd landed a part-time job cleaning apartments in the complex where she lived.

And thus the stage was set for all the days to follow.

It was four days after she moved in, a Saturday. Bethany failed to pick up her brother, Jamin, from the Anchorage airport -- even though she'd promised to be there.

Jamin Correira: That was odd. That was something that was unlike Bethany. Not to show up.

Linda told Jamin, don't worry. She and Bethany had made a plan to meet the next morning to shop for furniture.

On Sunday, Linda drove to Anchorage.

She knocked on Bethany’s door. No answer.

Linda Correira: The door was left unlocked, which kind of surprised me. Her bike was in the room, so I thought, well, then she must be jogging. So we waited around for awhile. And then I started getting a little nervous.

She tried to stay calm, went to the garage sale she and Bethany had planned to visit.

She couldn't focus. She went back to the apartment. Still no Bethany.

Linda Correira: And so I finally went to the police. And they told me that a missing person was usually at the bottom of the list. And that she's just probably just this and that. I said, "Well, I thought all that, too. But this is not like my daughter."

Linda called Billy, back in Talkeetna.

Bill Correira: And she said, "You need to come to Anchorage. Bethany's missing.” and I’m of course, I’m just in shock. “What do you mean?"

Detective Klinkhart arrived at Bethany’s apartment on Sunday evening.

He did not tell Linda that he was actually a member of the homicide unit.

Klinkhart went inside.

Glen Klinkhart: Her bed hadn't been made. There was a book that had been turned over. Her purse is still hanging in the closet. Her cell phone is sitting on the counter.

Keith Morrison: Kids don't leave their cell phones.

Glen Klinkhart: No. No. No. Everything told me that this was an apartment that she had been in and she just stepped out. And she had every intention of coming right back.

But outside was something truly odd.

The building right next door had been destroyed in a fire that very morning. It was ruled an accident, an electrical fire.

Glen Klinkhart: When I smell that smell, it definitely makes me suspicious, simply because of my history. That's a smell that you never, ever forget.

Because of my history, did he say? Yes, he did.

That smell, the look of that burned building, cut through his defenses. It opened up the old wound, the awful memory flooded his brain. That fire, years ago, that destroyed a part of him. His sister, so like Bethany, and where was he then, for her?

He shook it off. He went to double check the cause of the fire, got some experts in to take a look.

Glen Klinkhart: I said, "Well, what do you think?" And they looked at me and said, "This is an arson." The minute they said that, I mean, the hair on the back of my neck just stood up.

Arson? Klinkhart knew painfully well from personal experience that people trying to destroy evidence quite often burn things down.

What there was no evidence of, at all, was Bethany.

Glen Klinkhart: We had a burned out building where we didn't have forensics. I had her apartment, where I had no forensics. I had nothing.

And then, for some reason -- maybe the fresh turmoil over that old memory -- he went to Bethany’s parents and made a promise. He told them he would find her.

It was rash, perhaps, since already he sensed that the chances of finding her alive were slim.

Glen Klinkhart: They literally just said, “We're going to give you our daughter. Please find her.”

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