Alaskan Native, female, Jennifer Kirk, age 25, was found dead on May 23, 2018, inside a small house on property owned by then–Northwest Arctic Borough mayor Clement Richards Sr. in Kotzebue, Alaska. Police records describe a stark scene: Jennifer Kirk, age 25, lay curled at the foot of a bed with a. 22-caliber rifle nearby, a gunshot wound beneath her chin and marks on her neck that indicated strangulation. Officers arrived around 6 p.m.
after a neighbor called for help; inside the bedroom, they encountered Anthony Richards, one of the mayor's sons, holding the body with blood on his hands and clothes. He told officers he had heard a single gunshot while watching television in the living room with two children. The next day, before the final autopsy report was in hand, city police closed the case as a suicide.
In the weeks that followed, questions multiplied rather than quieted. Police measurements noted that the distance from the rifle's barrel tip to its trigger—27⅛ inches—exceeded Jennifer Kirk's arm length—measured at 26⅜ inches—raising the practical question of how the trigger might have been reached. A retired state crime lab firearms expert told reporters that, before ruling out other possibilities, the physical feasibility of self-firing with that weapon and body size warranted careful reconstruction. Police later asserted in a community letter that it was physically possible, but they did not explain how they reached that conclusion.
Other details in the official record cut against closure. Earlier that same day, according to police documents, Anthony Richards admitted he had caused the neck marks on Jennifer Kirk, age 25. Investigators also did not test his hands or clothing for gunshot residue, an omission that Jennifer Kirk's family discovered years later while pleading for renewed scrutiny. Despite the initial medical examiner's indication of “signs of strangulation,” local authorities maintained their suicide ruling and, for a time, offered differing accounts of how long they had actively investigated before closing the file.
The death of Jennifer Kirk, age 25, did not happen in a vacuum. Two years later, in March 2020, another woman—Susanna “Sue Sue” Norton—was found beaten and strangled at a neighboring house on the same Richards property. State troopers opened a homicide investigation in Norton's case, but the earlier death of Jennifer Kirk remained labeled a suicide. In November 2023, investigative reporting detailed persistent gaps in both inquiries; in January 2024, Kotzebue's police chief published an open letter stating that state investigators had reviewed Jennifer Kirk's case and found no new leads to pursue, and the department said it would not reopen the investigation.
No one has been arrested for, or charged in connection with, the death of Jennifer Kirk, age 25. Authorities have named no suspects in her case. Her family, unconvinced by the official narrative, continues to ask for answers—pressing for a more complete accounting of what happened in that small house on the former mayor's property on May 23, 2018, and why the investigation into the death of Jennifer Kirk, age 25, ended almost as quickly as it began.
