When detectives first confronted Kenneth Dion about the 1994 death of Bonnie Craig, Dion told them he didn't recognize the 18-year-old college student.
In a recorded interview played at Dion's murder trial Friday, investigator Tim Hunyor could be seen showing Dion a picture of the smiling teen. She had been raped and murdered more than a decade earlier, according to police. But the detective hadn't told Dion yet that Craig was dead, or that Dion's semen had been found inside her.
It was late 2006 or 2007 and police had found Dion jailed in New Hampshire for a series of armed robberies.
"No, I don't remember seeing her at all," Dion said in the video. It was the first time anyone attending the trial had heard Dion's deep voice and East Coast accent.
Maybe Dion knew her through a friend, the detective asked.
"Her? 18 years old? No, my wife would have killed me," Dion said, laughing. The detectives laughed, too.
Then Hunyor told Dion the young woman was found dead in McHugh Creek.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dion said, sitting forward in his chair. "What are you trying to say?"
What Hunyor was about to tell him -- and what police and prosecutors have said throughout the trial -- is that they think Dion sexually assaulted and killed Craig before throwing her body off a cliff into the creek.
For years, it looked as though the case would go unsolved. The lack of any apparent resolution shocked Anchorage residents, who saw pictures of Craig plastered around town on posters, billboards and on the sides of buses following her death. "Who killed Bonnie Craig?" the advertisements asked.
But Craig wasn't murdered, said Andrew Lambert, Dion's lawyer. Lambert argues that Dion and Craig had consensual sex and that Craig's death was the result of an accidental fall.
A hiker found Craig in McHugh Creek on a frosty autumn day, Sept. 28, 1994. A medical examiner later discovered about a dozen lacerations on the back of her head and semen inside her vagina and on her clothes.
There were no solid suspects for a dozen years, until the semen inside Craig was linked to Dion, who was serving time in New Hampshire.
His incarceration included providing a DNA sample, which was entered into a national database. In 2006, Alaska detectives received word that Dion's DNA matched their earlier sample, and they flew to New Hampshire to interview the man.
In the video, Dion told detectives he was in the military in Alaska back in '94, and had also worked at the Anchorage Hilton Hotel as a dishwasher. Dion had a wife at the time, but they'd divorced, he told the detectives.
Dion also described his experience in martial arts.
"I grew up fighting all my life," said Dion, who claimed to have once been a nationally ranked martial artist. "I'm a fifth-degree black belt, so I'd carry a lot of weapons in my car."
The weapons included a sai -- a dagger-shaped shaft with prongs -- nunchucks and a staff, Dion told them.
The detective's questions turned more specific: Did Dion remember hearing about a girl named Bonnie Craig?
"I can't recall. I can't remember," Dion said in the video.
Hunyor showed him a picture of Craig. Dion said he still didn't remember the young woman.
Hunyor said he was investigating a case involving Craig. That's why they'd traveled all the way to New Hampshire to talk to Dion. First, the investigators simply wanted to know if Dion knew her. He said he didn't.
Dion became defensive when detectives told him Craig was dead. That's where the tape stopped, apparently just before police told Dion in more detail about why they thought he'd killed Craig.
Dion was extradited back to Alaska shortly thereafter.
Investigator Hunyor, on the witness stand Friday, answered a few more questions from the prosecutor and the state rested its case against Dion.
Lambert, Dion's defense attorney, then asked Superior Court Judge Jack Smith to dismiss parts of the indictment against Dion, including possible charges that Dion kidnapped Craig or that he had any accomplices.
Smith denied Lambert's request and it was the defense attorney's turn to call witnesses.
Carol Klamser, an expert in sexual assault nursing, told the jury an injury to Craig's vagina could not be definitively linked to either sexual assault or consensual sex.
Another defense witness is scheduled to testify Monday as the trial nears its conclusion. Closing arguments in the case could come as soon as Tuesday.
Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.
By CASEY GROVE
casey.grove@adn.com