Anne Sears leads Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative
On April 4, Anne Sears, the first Native Alaskan woman to become an Alaska State Trooper, started a new job leading the Alaska Department of Public Safety’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative. She had only been retired for six months, but in an interview with The Nome Nugget, she said this was the one thing she’d come out of retirement for. “It means a lot to me, especially having been born in Alaska,” Sears said. “As a woman, it means a lot to me. I’m very honored that [Commissioner James Cockrell] had the confidence in me. Everything that I’ve done in my life has led up to this.”
Sears was born in Nome and served as an Alaska State Trooper with her husband Jay Sears at several different posts, including Nome. She retired in the fall of 2021 from AST. In her new job, Sears will work on unsolved murders and missing persons cases that involve Indigenous persons across the Alaska State Trooper’s area of responsibility. In her new role, she’ll be working out of the Alaska Dept. of Public Safety headquarters in Anchorage.
Her position, she says, is a work in progress, collaborating with everyone from family members to tribes to the state to the federal government, and bringing fresh eyes to cold cases, some dating back 40 years. But it isn’t just old cases, and she welcomed information about new cases, as they are all part of her job.
In addition to the fresh eyes and the lights which tribes and families continue to shine on the issue, overdue attention on the issue has changed the way the topic of missing and murdered Indigenous persons is seen. “It’s a public health concern,” Sears said.
In the beginning, she said, she’s taking a lot of notes. “I’m looking at the cases, rereading the investigative steps that were taken, looking at what evidence we have, what has been done with that evidence, any autopsy reports if we did have a body,” she said.
“The cases that I’ve looked at, there has been a lot of work that’s already been done, and I’m a continuation of that process. I’m taking the time to look at it again and see if there is anything more or new or different that we can tease out,” she said.
Sears is meeting with a lot of different partners: Federally, locally, state-wide, tribally. “I see a partnership with any entity, state, federal, NGO, that wants to help get to a resolution for these families.” What that looks like, Sears doesn’t know yet, and her work in the first month has mostly been meeting with existing partners across the spectrum of entities to figure out how to get everyone together.
“I am cautiously optimistic,” Sears said, and not just because everyone from the Department of Justice to the Sovereign Bodies Institute is involved. “A lot of the folks that have been contacting me are from the tribes, and they are doing a lot of work. They are the ones who are doing the remembrances, the rallies.” She has been involved in the First Alaskans Institute tribunals on missing and murdered Indigenous relatives, Tanana Chiefs Conference public safety conference, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida, among others.
A big part of that, is the community and family members. Sears explained that “this is a job that is going to involve working with the relatives of missing folks, murdered folks. They are hoping, wanting answers. I do have a handful of cases that I’ve had folks in the community reach out to me about their missing relative or murdered relative.” It’s going to be a difficult job, but it’s necessary, she said. One of those cases, she said, is the unsolved disappearance of Florence Okpealuk. “Florence’s case is definitely one that, before I even took the job, I wanted to take a look at,” Sears said.
“It’s heartbreaking, and all the family wants is closure, one way or the other,” she said.
Knowing that there are many such families out there, Sears said “I’d like folks to know to reach out to me, if they’ve got a missing or murdered family member, if they have concerns.”
“Communication is important, it’s gotta start somewhere,” she said.
Sears can be reached via email at anne.sears@alaska.gov or by phone at (907)764-3864.