Good question Pearl. There may be more to this than meets the eye. She may have been running from someone instead of something. We will probably never know. I wonder if there was a man in her life.

oldowl - I read O'Malley's blog about CB's blog. You're right: somehow she doesn't seem like she would have been all that unaware, or unprepared, or ignorant and helpless about how to behave/respond. Her blog, put side by side with the assumptions about her death, leave an uneasy feeling, something doesn't seem to mesh.

I wonder why her blog stopped so abruptly in Dec, right after the Christmas entries? When she'd kept it up so consistently before. Where did it go? What change came?

Read the excerpts from Candice's blog in todays Anchorage paper at adn.com. She wrote about how it was important to be aware of your surroundings in the woods and how she carried bear spray. Maybe she wasn't the ignorant "Outsider" she is being portrayed.

Still running is not a good thing in a rural area where predators are active.

The account I read said the footsteps were where she was dragged downhill. So how could they be hers? Perhaps her footprints were on the road but how could they be where she was dragged? This is where accurate news reporting is important. My intent is not to excuse wolf behavior; just to point out that there may be more to this story. People can be too quick to jump to conclusions. If the medical examiner only looked for what supported the trooper theory that is not right. Note I said "if" - I do not know for sure. She was doing the wrong thing running - that is for sure. But this situation is not a reason to declare a witch hunt for every wolf you see. It is a reason to learn how to behave when out in the woods. Never run from a predator. Be aware of your surroundings and don't wear a walkman or ipod, whichever it was. Yes wolf dog hybrids are more likely to attack humans than actual wolves. Yes wolves are shy of humans normally. Rabidity is a possibility. Yes those particular wolves should be destroyed if they were the ones who did it - hard to tell which they were if you didn't see them do it. But no reason to kill every wolf you see for one woman's mistake in the woods.

Processing DNA evidence [of wolves associated with her body] is a waste of time and money. Don't know why Col. Holloway would make such a suggestion. It can only 'prove' what's already been established by expert first hand observation [of tracks, etc], and by autopsy: that wolves were present and fed upon her body. The fact that there is DNA evidence on her body of wolf presence will not clarify whether she was initially brought down or killed by wolves.

However, I think it might be a wise idea to distroy that particular wolf pack, that has experienced human meat as prey/food, rabid or not. I don't think I'd be comfortable living near where that particular pack hunts, especially if I had young children to keep safe, though ordinarily the presence of wolves doesn't bother me.

oldowl - that should be a routine part of every complete autopsy. After all, the purpose of a "thorough and *independent*" is to find evidence not readily available, or necessarily even suspected, by other means. For that reason, autopsy should never be limited by the assumptions or preconceptions of other investigators [that's what 'independent' means]. Unfortunately, that is frequently not the situation with autopsies in the State of Alaska.

Although I can not speak to the practices of the present [newest] Medical Examiner and how she runs autopsy, I know that until quite recently it was SOP practice to limit autopsy exams to providing evidence to support LEO theories/assumptions, and/or answer specific LEO questions in re: their theory of the crime. And this undoubtably has contributed to the number of cold cases on the books, and the difficulty pursuing/prosecuting cases where the original LEO assumptions were not supportable.

Both the fact that she was probably running [and perhaps not paying close attention to her environs?], and the possibility that the pack was rabid, increase the likelihood that it may have been wolf attack that brought her down and killed her. I do believe, [however I am not 100% certain of the fact], that it is established that most incidents of wolf predation on humans in relatively recent times in Europe and Eurasian, were the result of wolf-dog hybridizations - very common where both species exist and much more aggressive/less shy toward human contact.

I don't know why people have such a problem believing that wolves will occasionally kill a human. They have done it for hundreds of years in Europe and Russia etc. They attacked the person at the Arctic Circle on the haul road several years ago and the same year one chased a bicyclist on the haul road and the fellow was saved by a trucker who swerved over and ran the wolf down just before he was taken down.

These wolves are hungry and they kill each other regularly and resort to cannibalism especially wolves from other packs. This young lady was running which everyone knows triggers the attack mode in predators. Rabid animals usually don't feed they only bite. The key word here is HUNGER and the wolves are doing what wolves do which is kill to eat the same as we do.

oldowl - I read somewhere that the human tracks (mentioned in one of the first articles) were hers.

I would be interested in knowing who the people tracks found next to the body where it had been dragged belong to. I read about this in adn.com and msnbc.com. The original person finding her reported tracks from a person - no explanation on that from troopers. So apparently she wasn't all alone out there. I wonder if something else happened that may have made her vulnerable to predators? Do examiners check for previous sexual contact in a case like this?

While I have some doubts about wolf attack being the [sole] cause of this woman's death [it's possible, but there are other possibilities, too], I hope that they can bring in at least 1 of the pack for examination. I think the fact that they fed on her body is beyond doubt, based on first hand observations, [so examining stomach contents is not an issue], but the possibility of rabies is of *outstanding concern*, especially for the villagers in the area. It needs to be known if this pack has rabies, and/or if rabies has an established presence in wolves in the area. The presence of rabies would certainly help explain [unusual] behavior.

I think, despite the delays caused by weather, there is a very good chance that they will be able to locate this specific pack and get a speciman for examination, especially with heavy new snow, once the winds drop. I can really sympathize with the villagers' concerns and anxieties in this, and hope they don't have to wait too much longer for the matter to be addressd.

Weather blows away the tracks too.

I hope they find the actual pack that killed her but hesitate in knowing that another pack could have moved into the area in the interrim.

Best of luck to all the townsfolk.