A Ketchikan grand jury has indicted two young adults and one 17-year-old on multiple charges Thursday for the death of 80-year-old Lincoln Peratrovich on March 21 in Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, 56 miles from Ketchikan.
Alaska State Troopers found Peratrovich, known locally as “Bingo,” dead in his Klawock mobile home.
Moses Scott Blanchard, 22, and Blaise Andrew Dilts, 21, are being charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, and first-degree burglary. Gonzalo Sanchez, 17, is being charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter, and first-degree burglary.
The men reportedly told investigators they had read a Facebook post stating Peratrovich had catcalled at a 13-year-old girl, and had chased her with an ax. The young men then beat Peratrovich to death with their hands, feet, and objects from around the house.
Another version of the incident was that Peratrovich talked to the girl and invited her to come inside for a bite to eat, while he was chopping firewood wood next to his home, but he continued to chop wood when she continued on her way.
The men told investigators they didn’t know if the allegations posted on Facebook were true. But comments on the Facebook post about the victim had urged violence against the elder.
“My uncle has been killed over gossip,” wrote Pamela Huteson on Facebook.
On March 21, after 1 am, the door to Peratrovich’s trailer was broken in. The three men reportedly entered and assaulted Peratrovich, while he was in bed.
Sanchez was arraigned Friday. Dilts and Blanchard are scheduled to be arraigned on Monday in Ketchikan Superior Court.
All the defendants could face up to 99 years in custody as a maximum sentence. All are in custody and held on the same bail amounts- $500,000 100 percent cash performance and $100,000 appearance bail with 10 percent to post.
Peratrovich family is well known in Southeast and around Alaska. Frank Peratrovich, who died in 1984, was the mayor of Klawock, and also served in the territorial legislature. Frank’s brother Roy married Elizabeth Peratrovich; the two would fight for civil rights for Alaska Natives and Elizabeth Peratrovich Day is now a nationally recognized day of honor on Feb. 16.
In 2009, the late Lincoln Peratrovich and the Shakan Kwann Tlingit band of rural residents sued the Secretary of Interior Kenneth Lee Salazar, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Villas, and chairman of the Federal Subsistence Board Tom Toward over a matter relating to subsistence fishing. His case was consolidated with the famous Katie John case, which became a pivotal case for Alaska Native subsistence rights.
I once scared a woman in my neighborhood by accidentally starting my afternoon walk at the same time she was walking by. It quickly became clear that she thought I was trying to walk with her, which I most certainly was not. I guess I’m pretty lucky I didn’t get beaten to death by this trio.
Beat a man while he’s in bed. That’s cowards for ya.
This makes no sense.. I thought the indigenous peoples were decolonizing? Why are they using colonialists’ tools such as computers?
Classy.
An old man was beaten to death in his own bed. He was murdered, plain and simple. And you want to make it about political issues? Just plain cold.
The oldest computer in the world is the brain.
The Indigenous are Alaska’s first people 😉
All modern humans have exactly the same length of “tribal knowledge” and history. The received wisdom of all peoples is “(tens of) thousands of years old.” All peoples lived in exactly the same “state of nature” as all others at some point.
The mere fact of being second to last to arrive on a given patch of dirt doesn’t inherently grant anything meaningful nor praiseworthy.
Children have not learned ‘honor thy father and mother.’ this law sets up how the young respect other older adults. the challenge always been how to
honor mom and dad when child thinks or knows mom or dad are acting, talking, or thinking wrong.
The poor man could had just been just being friendly and misunderstood by younger generations lacking love for one another and understanding and patience to eccentric personalities. I was happy to read the man he maintained his independence up to his death, he worked in his own youth years, so he can have something his for his old age.
Reads like meth rage. Klawock is a small community. I’m sure they were well known.
This is an important story Suzanne and thanks for bringing our attention to it. My prayers are for the Peratrovich family, the people of Klawock, and that the full truth of this tragic story will be discerned and reported on.
Gangster Culture on display for everyone to see here, savage, confused and utterly hopeless.
Facebook is the weapon of gossip, lies, envy, and hate for young people ……….as well as for many adults.
Woke values at work here. Having abandoned a notion of a living God they supplant such values with exaggerated sense of self-righteousness imposed across all (antiquated) others. The science here is a new generations of youths tend to be in bloom each year. The bloom of youth can sometimes be a bit on the stunning side. She is surprised by the turn of events and has no idea of why males react as they do. If she has a mother or grandmother they talk about how the family values cope with this while she completes an education with safeguards in place. This is the human condition. The answer is not “killing” one another, springlings. Language, kindness, respect, modesty, loyalty, empathy, allow space for all.
From time to time members of one of the two tribes on POW kill a member of the other tribe. I’ll bet no decade has been without at least one incident of this sort for a very long time. Law and order can be a fragile concept in rural Alaska.
Social media has at best, dehumanized an entire generation as to what is ‘perceived’ reality, and what is ‘actual’ reality.
Social media has at worst, dehumanized an entire population as to what is ‘perceived’ reality, and what is ‘actual’ reality.
Perception of ‘reality’ has become the causation of reaction physically within a pro-retaliative world, whence the actual reality is not what is perceived by those that live within a reality-based existence, but rather those that exist within non-reality-based existence, that is, a perceived reality within their social media existence, and yet act out within a physical existence outside of their social media perceived reality, which does not actually exist within true reality.
The mentally ill does not understand the difference, just as those that support said mentally ill purposefully, and willingly fully understands the difference, but are all the more willing to benefit from those that do not.
If this is true, the people on Facebook should be charged with inciting violence.
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