A 22-year-old woman is found hanging in a one-room apartment she shares with her boyfriend. The apartment is so small it doesn’t have a kitchen, and it’s strewn with clothes and shoes, issues of National Geographic, sticks of deodorant, brochures about subsidized cell-phone service, newsletters from international volunteer organizations, DVDs from a Seventh-day Adventist church in Canada, and many containers of almond milk. The cause of her death is “asphyxiation” and the manner is “undetermined,” according to King County Medical Examiners. She might have committed suicide. She might have been murdered. She might have been killed accidentally. The medical examiners don’t know. Seattle homicide detectives don’t know.
Here’s what we do know: Sakara Kachina Yepa Dunlap, known to her friends as Sky, grew up in Juneau, Alaska. She was a Native Alaskan, studied Native singing and dancing, and once toured in a Tlingit-language production of Macbeth. Her friend Seneca—better known in Seattle by his burlesque name, the Luminous Pariah—describes her as a very happy, playful person. “She was like a second sun,” he says.
Seneca does not believe that Sky committed suicide.
He is not alone in this opinion. After Sky’s death, her family and friends began insisting—to police, medical examiners, attorneys general, the governors of Washington and Alaska, the FBI, journalists, anyone who would listen—that she had been murdered.
Sky moved to Seattle in November of 2007, sold dried fruits and nuts and candy at a stand in the Pike Place Market, and had recently begun dabbling in the local burlesque scene. Based on the descriptions of people who knew her, she also had a tempestuous on-again/off-again romantic relationship with a middle-aged African American man named Abdu Salaam, whose last name The Stranger is not publishing because he has not been charged with a crime. (Due to the sensitive nature of the case, The Stranger is withholding some other last names as well. Abdu Salaam’s first name is spelled in a variety of ways in official documents pertaining to the case—sometimes as one word, sometimes as “Abdul Salaam.”) Sky was big—fleshy but not fat—with blue glasses, a nose ring, and a cascade of curly chestnut hair. In photos, Abdu Salaam is shorter than her, with long dreadlocks, a narrow face, and a toothy smile.
The two of them met in the summer of 2008 at a blues festival in Chicago while Sky was hitchhiking around the country. They traveled together, lived in Hawaii for a few months to work on a farm, and visited her friends and family in Alaska. Seneca remembers Abdu Salaam as a gregarious man who told exciting, sometimes improbable tales of his travels throughout the world, including a stint in Latin America, where he claimed to have camped in the jungle for long periods of time, taking water samples for ecological research projects.
Seneca went camping with Sky and Abdu Salaam on Mount Roberts near Juneau in August 2008; he says that Abdu Salaam “kept asking really basic camping questions, like how to build a fire. He had trouble pitching a tent. He didn’t seem to have any knowledge of preparation for the elements.” Seneca began to suspect that Abdu Salaam hadn’t spent much time camping in Latin America or anywhere else.
Other people who knew and liked Sky—family, friends, some of her former neighbors—describe Abdu Salaam as manipulative and jealous. Seneca says that Abdu Salaam made Sky “stressed out” because he argued that his Muslim religion allowed him to have multiple sex partners but forbade her from sleeping with anyone else. “I could go on about the difficulties I’ve had dating Muslim men,” Seneca said, rolling his eyes.
The multiple-partners question was an ongoing theme in Sky and Abdu Salaam’s relationship, according to Sky’s friends and neighbors. Seneca is so convinced that Sky was killed that he began doing detective work on his own, including recording interviews with Sky’s neighbors. One of those neighbors remembers hearing “Sakara crying on a number of occasions, and usually when he [Abdu Salaam] was around.” The neighbor says, “I didn’t like him, to be frank. He creeped me out from day one. I was dating this lady…” he begins, and tells a long story about Abdu Salaam being “inappropriate and creepy” toward the neighbor’s girlfriend. “He would look over as if I weren’t even there and look at my girlfriend who was very attractive and make eyes at her… When he left, both of us were like, ‘God damn, that guy’s so creepy and inappropriate.'”
After that encounter, according to the neighbor, Abdu Salaam would visit the girlfriend at her waitressing job and would say things like “‘Oh, you know, me and Sakara are looking to add another partner’—which I feel was more his idea than hers for sure. And, you know, [he’d say], ‘I’m interested in seeing if you or any of your friends want to join in.’ And she’s like, ‘No, thank you.’ You know? She was nice and cool about it… After a couple weeks of this almost borderline stalking behavior, she’s like, ‘That guy’s making me so uncomfortable.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, me too, I would kind of like to kick his ass, to be honest.’ But, you know, I’m not going to do that.”
According to the neighbor’s account, he eventually went to Abdu Salaam’s workplace—a retail shop that sells masks, stone carvings, incense, and other African imports—and told him that he was “full of shit… you need to back off and you need to be respectful and you need to leave my girlfriend alone.”
Around the same time, Seneca told Sky that Abdu Salaam was no longer welcome in Seneca’s apartment in the Central District.
A friend of Sky’s in Juneau named Shadow didn’t like Abdu Salaam, either. Shadow says he “made my skin crawl” and describes him as “a little too nice, a little too charming.” She says, “He was with her all the time. It was to the point that when she came to visit me, he’d tag along.” Sky was “killed deliberately,” Shadow believes. “Sky loved life.” In an affidavit that was written by Shadow but has not yet been filed in any proceeding, she echoes Seneca’s feeling about Abdu Salaam’s tall tales, saying, “Abdu Salaam’s trips to foreign countries were fabricated.”
On October 6, 2009, Sky was staying for the night with Shadow in Juneau. “You know, just girls discussing girl stuff,” Shadow remembers. “That evening, Sakara Kachina Yepa Dunlap told me that during sex with Abdul Salaam, he liked to restrain her physically, hold her wrists down, or tie her up, and that he would asphyxiate her around the neck with his hands,” Shadow wrote in her affidavit. “I asked Sakara if this bothered or frightened her in any way. She said she didn’t mind the bondage but didn’t like being asphyxiated because she didn’t like her airway being blocked. She said it made her feel like she wasn’t in control. She told me that she allowed him to do it because it turned him on, and since he didn’t take it too far it seemed okay. After that, she changed the subject.”
So how did Sakara Kachina Yepa Dunlap die? Suicide, homicide, or accident? All of my attempts to get in touch with Abdu Salaam were unsuccessful. I called him, e-mailed him, and texted him several times. On September 11, he returned one of those phone calls, but didn’t leave a message; that was his only attempt to reply. The Seattle Police Department’s investigation remains open but doesn’t seem to be making much progress. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” says SPD homicide detective Lieutenant Steve Wilske, who has been on the force for 25 years. “But there comes a time when you’ve talked to everybody you’ve talked to, and until new information comes along, you’ve pretty much done everything you can do.”
Here is the current official understanding of what happened on the night that Sky died.
On Sunday, April 4, 2011, Sky is at home, in apartment 101 of the Summit Inn. Abdu Salaam is at a reggae night at the Baltic Room, five blocks away. The available cell phone records are confusingly spare, but Sky had a 26-minute conversation with her mother in Juneau that either began or ended at 9:49 p.m. At 10:08 p.m., Abdu Salaam calls, but Sky doesn’t pick up. Then she either sends or receives two text messages, and then she checks her voice mail, and then there are seven more text messages sent or received.
At 2:12 a.m., on his way home from the Baltic Room, Abdu Salaam is rung up at J’s Quick Stop, a convenience store that’s a three-minute walk from his and Sky’s apartment, buying a snack. (He later demonstrates this to homicide detectives by producing a receipt.) Three minutes later, he’s calling 911, sounding upset. Not hysterical, just upset. What follows isn’t an exact transcript—there are a lot of muffled words and noises throughout—but this is most of the decipherable material. Abdu Salaam tells the operator that he has found his girlfriend hanging in their apartment: “Please help,” he says. “Should I cut her down? Please.”
“Is she breathing at all?” the operator asks.
“It’s been five hours,” Abdu Salaam says. “Five hours, I think. I don’t know.” This will become a point of fixation for Sky’s family and friends. The family and friends who believe that Sky never would have killed herself, that she must have been accidentally killed or intentionally murdered, theorize that Abdu Salaam said “five hours” to begin building his alibi. Sky’s father, Michael Kahdushan, sent the recording to a friend of his who’d had taken a class in “forensic statement analysis,” but who admits, “I could not even begin to qualify as an expert to testify in court.” Nevertheless, this friend wrote in an e-mail, “Right after saying she hung herself, he starts talking about ‘five hours,’ even though no one has asked anything remotely relating to how long it had been, etc. He’s perhaps answering a question he knows he’ll have to answer at some point and is focused on his being somewhere else when she died.”
Back to the phone call: The operator asks Abdu Salaam for the address of “the problem” and then another operator, an ambulance dispatcher, gets on the line. Abdu Salaam asks the ambulance dispatcher if he should cut her down.
Ambulance dispatcher: “Is there an apartment number?”
Abdu Salaam: “I need to know—”
Ambulance dispatcher: “What’s going on?”
Abdu Salaam: “She might have hung herself—I need to know if I should cut her down, right away.”
Ambulance dispatcher: “Yes! Get her down!”
911 operator: “Well, he says she’s been there for five hours—correct?”
Abdu Salaam: “I think so! Yes. Please! Tell me right away!”
Ambulance dispatcher: “Okay, she’s been hanging there for five hours?”
Abdu Salaam: “I don’t know! I just—I was walking—I have not seen her since five hours.”
Ambulance dispatcher: “Is she cold?”
There is a pause.
Abdu Salaam: “Is she cold? No, she’s a little warm, she’s a little warm.”
Ambulance dispatcher: “Okay, yes, get her down.”
Abdu Salaam: “Let me check if she has a pulse or not.”
There are several seconds of background noise.
Ambulance dispatcher: “How old is she?”
Abdu Salaam: “I’m putting you on speakerphone. I’m cutting her down. I’m going to cut her down.”
Ambulance dispatcher: “How old is she?”
Abdu Salaam: “She’s, uh, 22.”
Then there’s a thump and Abdu Salaam’s voice smears into a scream. “Oh my god!” he howls. “Oh my god! She just fell! She just fell! Please get here right away!”
Ambulance dispatcher: “What?”
Abdu Salaam: “She fell, come get here right away please.”
Ambulance dispatcher: “Hey listen, we’re already on our way.”
After more back and forth, Abdu Salaam apparently leaves the apartment and goes into the hallway, knocking on his neighbors’ doors and calling their names. “She hung herself, she hung herself, please! Does anybody care?”
Ambulance dispatcher: “Listen to me, do you know how to do CPR?” He adds, “Hello? Listen to me, do you know how to do CPR?”
Abdu Salaam says he knows CPR and that he will do it but begins wailing: “Oh my god! Sakara! Sakara! Oh my god! Please wake up!”
The dispatcher asks Abdu Salaam to put someone else on the phone and start
doing CPR. “Are you going to do it?” the dispatcher says. “HELLOOO?” He tells Abdu Salaam how to proceed: Put his hands in the center of her chest, push down one or two inches, once a second. “Keep doing it till we get there,” the dispatcher says sternly.
Abdu Salaam claims he’s performing CPR but keeps shouting out to his neighbors.
“You need to do the CPR,” the dispatcher says. “Nobody else can help you. You gotta do it by yourself.”
“Can you let the fire people in downstairs?” Abdu Salaam calls out. There are some beeps, the ambulance dispatcher says he’s going to hang up so Abdu Salaam can open his door, Abdu Salaam tells him not to hang up, and then Abdu Salaam is heard saying: “She hung herself, man, please. It seems like Sakara hung herself, please.” Then, “Oh god. Don’t hang up, don’t hang up, please, please. She hung herself. She hung herself. I had to cut her down. Please. Anything you can do to get her alive, please. Oh my gosh, please, please! Oh my God! Oh my God,” he says, his voice breaking.
“Just relax,” someone says, “Let the fire department do their job.” Abdu Salaam wails and says once again, “She hung herself.” And finally a male voice tells Abdu Salaam to calm down. The phone goes dead.
Seven days later, Sergeant Mark Worstman files his report on Sky’s death with the Seattle Police Department. He’d visited the scene with medical examiner Joe Frisino on April 7 and interviewed Abdu Salaam on April 8. Worstman retrieved texts and photos from Sky’s cell phone. In his report, under the “type of incident” heading, Worstman types “death—suicide.”
Two months later, Dr. Timothy Williams of the county medical examiner’s office signs her autopsy report. The report reads like a mechanic’s assessment of a damaged machine: “The body shows injuries associated with hanging and blunt force injuries, described below…” The injuries are mostly on her head and lower legs. They’re small bruises and a few scattered cuts that could have happened any number of ways—practicing a dance routine, riding a bike, her fall when Abdu Salaam cut her down, the vagaries of life.
The medical examiners had gone to work on Sky’s body with their blades and speculums and test tubes. They found no overt signs of a struggle—no scratches or bruises that would indicate a fight, none of Abdu Salaam’s DNA under her fingernails.
So the medical examiners went deeper—they scalped her, sawed open her skull, and weighed her brain (2.99 pounds, totally normal). They exhumed and weighed her heart (0.805 pounds, also normal). In the autopsy photos, her heart is an iridescent red-meat color, tinged with blue. Three deep-blue veins running from its top to its bottom look like rivers on a map, like an Egypt with three Niles.
The medical examiners pried open and photographed her vagina. It looks pink and young and healthy, with some streaks of blood on her inner thighs. She was wearing a menstrual pad. They cut her open at the throat and pried it up with metal instruments. The close-up of her flayed throat looks like a spray of peacock feathers—a weird palette of pinkish muscle, bright yellow fat, blue blotches, and red rivulets of blood.
The photographs of the dissected Sky—turned literally inside out, parts of her anatomy so intimate that not even she knew what they looked like, pried and poked and photographed by strangers—are disturbing. But the most horrifying photos aren’t of Sky’s inverted corpse. They are of her face, mouth, and throat just after she died, when she still vaguely resembles the happy young woman in the photos forwarded to me by her family and friends—photos of Sky holding an elaborate-looking flower in Hawaii, Sky sitting on the couch with friends, Sky on the beach with her arms around Abdu Salaam.
In the autopsy photos of her face, her lips are purple, ragged, and swollen. They resemble slugs. Below her lips, two trails of crusted saliva frame her chin like slug trails. In the close-up photos of her mouth, her tongue is swollen and twisted, poking through her teeth. The injuries to her throat where she’d been hanging (by a yellow martial-arts belt—she’d been taking tae kwon do) are livid, intertwining streaks of purples and yellows, all bruised and scabby-looking. In some places, you can see the threads of the cloth belt as if it had been made of hot metal and seared her skin.
The autopsy report calls everything else about Sky’s body “unremarkable.” Her deep cerebral nuclei and extrahepatic biliary system are unremarkable. Her proximal spinal cord is unremarkable. Her heart valves, atria, and aorta are unremarkable. Her spleen, bladder, intestines, pancreas, thyroid, lung, liver, kidneys, ribs, abdominal fat, clavicles, and sternum are unremarkable. Her toxicology report—totally clean, no drugs or booze—is unremarkable. Her oral, anal, and vaginal swabs are unremarkable.
Nothing about Sky’s autopsy report is remarkable. Except the first paragraph:
This 22 year old woman, per report, was found in her apartment hanging by a ligature about the neck. Autopsy revealed findings consistent with hanging, and no other fatal injuries. The cause of death is certified as asphyxia due to hanging. Due to uncertainty pertaining to the circumstances in which the death occurred, the manner of death is certified as undetermined.
In an autopsy, “undetermined” is a remarkable word.
Each year, a handful of people in the United States die in ways that cannot be explained. In 2009 (the most recent year that figures are available), King County medical examiners classified 59 causes of the year’s 12,967 deaths, just 0.46 percent, as “undetermined.” Four of those 59 people died of gunshot wounds. Three died by falling. Three had “no anatomic or toxicological cause of death.” And so on.
According to SPD homicide detective Wilske, most “undetermined” deaths are a question of accident versus suicide—drug overdose, drowning, fatal fall, that kind of thing. Sky’s friends and family may be convinced that she was murdered, but it’s “pretty rare,” Wilske says, for the medical examiners to classify a possible murder as “undetermined.” He repeats the phrase, saying, “It’s pretty rare that they would say, ‘We’re not sure which it is, but it could be a homicide.'”
The verb “to determine” comes from the Latin determinare, which means “to enclose, bound, set limits to.” Determinare is related to terminus, which means a “limit” or an “end.” Death is terminal, by definition. But an “undetermined death” is an undetermined terminus, an endless end—it is a void, a black hole that sucks things in and never lets them go. The death of Sakara Kachina Yepa Dunlap is a void.
Undetermined deaths have been rare throughout the history of forensic medicine, and they provoke both curiosity and anxiety. The majority of Hamlet, Western literature’s first great murder mystery, follows the main character as he plunges into an ocean of existential dread, trying to figure out whether his father was murdered or bitten by a snake. Hamlet’s obsession with his dead father poisons all of his relationships with living people: with his mother, his stepfather, his childhood friends, his lover, her father, her brother, and random people who happen to live in the castle. By the end, all the major characters have died violently. And Hamlet’s father is no more dead or alive than he was before.
I have received hundreds of e-mails about Sky’s death in the past month or so, at least 125 of them from Sky’s parents. Several of their e-mails contain variations on the question “Who did this to my little girl?” They claim that Abdu Salaam is manipulative and promiscuous, and all sorts of other things—for example, that the SPD hasn’t thoroughly investigated Sky’s death because she was involved in protests against the SPD about the murder of local Native American woodcarver John T. Williams.
Sky’s father, Michael Kahdushan, put his friend Jim Spiri on the case. Kahdushan met Spiri while they were working for military contractors in Iraq—Spiri, in his own words, has done “a lot,” including war photography, lobbying to get a military health-care bill passed in Congress when his son (a marine with a fatal brain tumor) died, and private detective work on a kidnapping case in Belize. Spiri agrees with Kahdushan that Sky’s death is suspicious. “Things don’t sit right with me with this story,” he says, mentioning “clothing found on the scene related to that asphyxiation stuff. There are a lot of red flags.” (Maybe so, but bondage paraphernalia doesn’t equal murder.) Spiri also admits that the psychology of grief might contribute to the family’s monomaniacal insistence that Sky was murdered.
“I never let go after my son died, until I got the bill passed in Congress,” Spiri said. “And Michael doesn’t want to face the loss of his daughter, and he’s staying on this case until he gets some resolution.”
Resolution is a key part of the grieving process, according to youth-suicide expert Sue Eastgard. “There’s always the notion that a family is going to accept a murder or an accident before a suicide,” she says. Could it be that Sky’s family and friends are insisting that she was murdered because they’re being driven by their own refusal to admit that she was so unhappy that she’d kill herself? “Well, I’ve seen that before,” Eastgard says. “The medical examiner makes a finding of suicide, but the family says I don’t believe that, she would never do that sort of thing. What’s confusing me here is that the medical examiner is doubting it. And it is easier in our society to accept an accident or a murder than a suicide, even though they end the same way—in death.”
Eastgard asks me the kinds of questions that some investigators pose to conduct what she called a “psychological autopsy.” (According to Lieutenant Wilske, the SPD does not conduct psychological autopsies.) Many youth suicides, Eastgard says, are impulsive acts, “the act of an unformed brain,” with a trigger event, like a fight with one’s parents or sudden bad news. Had she just lost her job? (No.) Was there a breakup? (Not that we know of.) Had she recently discovered that she was pregnant? (No, she was menstruating.) Was she an addict of some kind? (Not that we know of, and her toxicology tests came up clean.) Had she shown signs of depression? (No, everybody describes her as happy and outgoing and forward-looking.)
Then it’s a puzzle, Eastgard says. “Unless she was an incredibly gifted actress and it was all inner torture, I would be less inclined to look at suicide than something else—accident or murder.”
That leaves us where we started—guessing. We have forensic material, but the forensic material doesn’t explain what happened. In the absence of an explanation, there are at least four possible scenarios—four fictions—that can be strung together based on the facts.
Fiction number one: Abdu Salaam murdered Sky. Sky’s friends and family would tell you to consider his call to 911 and how he started building his alibi immediately—”five hours”—even though nobody had asked. Consider everyone’s description of her as a happy person and the photos that depict her that way. Consider her friends’ stories about what a lying, jealous, manipulative, “boundary-crossing” jerk Abdu Salaam was. Consider that Sky had no history of diagnosed depression and hadn’t said anything about being depressed to anyone—she was studying tae kwon do, doing burlesque with her friends, talking about studying French. Maybe she’d taken on another lover, or maybe Abdu Salaam just thought she had. Maybe, hypothetically, for reasons we will never know, he lost his cool and strangled her, then tied a yellow tae kwon do belt in a loop around the top rail of their raised bed, hoisted her head through it, and left to let the ligature do its work, then went to a club, made a late-night stop at a convenience store to substantiate his alibi, and walked home to call 911 and tell the lie that would save his life.
Fiction number two: Maybe Sky died accidentally while she and Abdu Salaam were having sex—technically that wouldn’t be murder. She’d admitted to a friend that she liked to be tied down and that he liked to put his hands around her throat. Maybe on the evening of April 4, 2011, he went too far and then, after realizing what he’d done, faked her suicide.
Fiction number three: Sky was killed by a mystery person, either herself (accidentally) or someone else—someone who broke into her room for reasons we don’t understand. Or she was experimenting with autoerotic asphyxiation. Or something. Wild card.
Fiction number four: Sky committed suicide for reasons nobody will ever understand. If the stories Sky’s friends tell are true, Abdu Salaam may be a jerk, but being a jerk is not the same thing as being a murderer. Sky didn’t demonstrate any overt suicide tip-offs, but so what? Everyone is different and every suicide is its own cipher. In The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides—in which five sisters living in suburban 1970s America kill themselves on the same night—there is a scene in which a middle-aged American doctor is in a hospital, talking to young Cecilia, who slit her wrists for reasons nobody besides her can understand. (Her suicide attempt is the prologue to the sisters’ impending suicide spree.) The doctor is trying to understand why Cecilia tried to kill herself. “What are you doing here?” he asks, baffled. “You aren’t even old enough to know how bad life can get.”
She answers, “Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”
Which is another way of saying: You may be an expert, but you are not me. You do not live inside my head. You have no idea how unpleasant my life can be.
Since nobody has forensic evidence that points definitively to homicide, suicide, or accident, we’re left with an undetermined death. A mystery.
“Death by suicide is more complicated than any other kind of death,” Eastgard says. “This situation is even more complicated. When my dad got colon cancer, I knew he was going to get smaller and smaller in the bed and then die. It didn’t make me jaded, but at least I could make sense out of it. With a car accident or murder, at least people can say, ‘There’s the causality’… This group of family and friends has a tremendous amount of struggle ahead of them to come to peace with her death. When they lie in bed and think about her hanging—which I’m sure they are—they don’t know how to come to peace with that. Blame is a huge part of grief. A HUGE part!”
She adds, “They don’t have anything to hold on to and get mad at. Change, loss, and grief are all a process of understanding, in our little pea brains, what happened and why.”
Some say that death is the great equalizer, but not all deaths are equal. Some voids are deeper than others.
“The only thing we are certain of after all these years is the insufficiency of explanation,” the narrator of The Virgin Suicides says. “It didn’t matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn’t heard us calling, still do not hear us… calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”
Only one person in this story knows for sure how Sakara “Sky” Kachina Yepa Dunlap died, but she’s dead. It’s possible that another person knows more, but he won’t talk to me. 
I don’t normally agree with A. Birch Steen, but in this case, I do. You should not be printing pictures of the victim’s corpse. Especially in light of your comments about “the sensitive nature of the crime”. Imagine how her friends and family feel about these pictures.
Jesus, what is the point of the pictures? Some attempt to be edgy? An attempt to get people to read the article? I suggest doing good work instead and not citing works of fiction as reasons people may or may not do things, particularly murder and suicide. That is not journalism, that is freshman English.
Ugh
I agree with 1,2, and 3: Printing the photos was a mistake. Those images do not need to be in the public view.
Don’t see how the picture of the poor victim’s neck adds anything to the story. I think we have a good idea of what a hanging victim’s neck looks like.
Classless, again.
Mudede should read this article. Especially the parts about grief and blame.
I support including the pictures and, for one, don’t actually “have a good idea of what a hanging victim’s neck looks like.”
Anyway, how can anyone think the photos are more gruesome than the description of the autopsy?
yeah the photos are what are horrible about this article…did you even get to the gleeful descriptions of the autopsy?
“The medical examiners pried open and photographed her vagina. It looks pink and young and healthy, with some streaks of blood on her inner thighs. She was wearing a menstrual pad. They cut her open at the throat and pried it up with metal instruments. The close-up of her flayed throat looks like a spray of peacock feathers—a weird palette of pinkish muscle, bright yellow fat, blue blotches, and red rivulets of blood.”
I am sorry to say, though I defended all of your writing and involvement in the Kalebu case, here I think you have crossed several lines and pushed your agenda a bit further than you should have for a first investigative article about the case.
It would be nice to see a picture of Sky as a person, rather than a series of body parts.
Well, this seems wildly irresponsible. There are three big questions unanswered. What is the time of death? Does the boyfriend have an alibi? and the big one, Would it be possible to strangle her then tie a belt around her neck and hang her up and have it fool the police and examiners. It is likely that the police are not investigating a murder because it would be impossible to strangle someone then fake a hanging. The suggestion that he is possible killer, accidentally or on purpose, without knowing more seems very irresponsible, and disservice to a man who has just lost his girlfriend. I am quite sure that if the police thought murder was a possibility, they would be investigating it. it isn’t all that easy to fake a suicide, I think. And writer, please do not use a fictional work to somehow make a point about suicide. It is silly and pointless. Will you next reference a scene from Saw to somehow suggest she was killed by a stranger being forced to do it by an evil mask wearing villain?
@ 8. I can promise you there was nothing gleeful about any of this. Just the opposite. But I wanted to relate what was in the more graphic photos without having to post them.
@ 10. You’re right—sorry. We ran one in the paper that didn’t make it to the online version yet. It should be coming momentarily.
Wow, if I were the boyfriend, I’d sue you for libel. Where is the evidence that convicts him of this crime you so clearly want to implicate him in?
ugh.
I knew Sky. I was certainly not expecting to see pictures of my dead friend when I opened up The Stranger.
Rob Roys
Juneau, AK
I hope her family doesn’t read this and if they do they are prepared for disturbing pictures and graphic descriptions of their loved one’s autopsy.
I think it is good for an article to bring to light this amazing young woman who was taken from her loved ones too soon. But really, were the photos necessary? Was that desription of her autopsy necessary? I understand trying to shock people into seeing her as a victim. But this article just made her into a body, not a person, not even a victim.
this is disgusting. you should be ashamed of yourself for writing this. You’ve completely stripped this poor girl of any semblance of what remained of her life and privacy, and posting photos of her corpse? What the fuck?
the people making comments need to know that the police did not really do all that was necessary here. The comment about the “grieving boyfriend” is not accurate. He was photographed just a few days later with his arm around two young ladies strolling out of a bar. The boyfriend known as abdu salaam is a shady, shady character. There is much more behind the scenes about his reputation that was not printed for legal reasons.
Also, people need to know that the truth is sometimes and usually extremely ugly. It is indicative of the world we live in. I have seen all the photos of Sky. It is sad, but it is part of the investigation. What people fail to know is that she was not found hanging. Only Abdu Salaam said she was hanging. He, the so called grieving boyfriend, was supposedly at the Baltic Bar from 9pm until nearly 2am on the 4th of April. However, the police refused to secure the video of his presence there. That is just one of scores of inconsistencies in this case. Abdu Salaam has a history of treating women with much disrespect. But the police failed to look into that.
I am disgusted at this poor attempt of journalism. I knew Sakara I loved Sakara, and seeing those pictures hurt my heart so much. It’s bad enough that the description of the autopsy (was that really necessary) was too graphic, but those pics cannot be erased from my mind. Would you like it if one of your deceased friends or family members had pictures posted of their bodies at a crime scene? It’s degrading, and it doesn’t embrace the sanctity of a human life.
I knew Sky and I would like to remember her alive! She was so bright!
Her dude is hella creapy
Stay away from him
She would not be dead if she had not know him
Please don’t publish those photos again!
Thank you
I am completely disgusted that The Stranger would publish such dehumanizing pictures of my friend. Brendan Kiley you should be ashamed of yourself for publishing those pictures. I remember her being full of life with a laugh that could fill a room. I wished to remember my friend as she was. You have taken that from me. I haven’t looked beyond the first picture, but even that is too much. It’s been less than a year since we lost her. The fuck is wrong with you?
You suck as a journalist and a human being.
ugh is right.
I guess now that Amandas released Brendan elected himself to replace the sensationalistic void…
ugh
Brendan, don’t let negative comments get to you. You’ve performed a great piece here. Americans are very uncomfortable with death. Our modern fixation of youth and vitality makes us phobic of it.
I understand what you’re trying to do, in cultures around the world, when justice is crying out, the media and family members would show victims of the abused, the assaulted and the murdered. I know you’re not trying to be edgy. You’re trying to advocate for justice, for an answer, for some sort of closure for this young victim.
You did good, you did good.
I spoke her eulogy, I am thankful the truth is getting out there. I stayed with her mother for a whole week while her father was in Seattle trying, begging the police to take this serious. The more people know about this crime the better.
How sad! My condolences to all who knew and love Sky. RIP.
Thank you for this story. I spoke at her memorial, She lived with my wife and me for most of 2 college years. I stayed with her mother and sibling for a week after she was murdered. This was the week that her father was in Seattle trying to get the police to take this seriously, I don’t think they ever did. I am glad that more people are getting to know the facts around her death.
You know, when I first saw that the Stranger was investigating Sakara’s death, I was thrilled. It’s not every day that there’s real follow up on the suspicious death of a girl who’s not white/blonde/skinny. I was Sakara’s and AbdulSalaam’s neighbor, and I know who the anonymous neighbor is. As soon as he told me his speculations, I became afraid that his gossip might blow up bigger than it should be. I am ashamed of you for amplifying his unfounded speculation and ashamed of this paper for running so much circumstantial evidence. This is conviction by circumstance. And between the grotesque, sensational, and disrespectful descriptions of the autopsy and the self-indulgent philosophizing, I’m totally repelled by this piece.
I hope this piece helps to keep the case warm, but I think if it does, it’ll be totally incidental to the quality and integrity of it.
–Paige Clifton-Steele
I’m glad the questions about this case are getting some attention but I have a few serious questions. Since when does strangling someone during sex not constitute murder? She may have tolerated bondage but not strangulation. No time of death in the article is a huge gap. Why describe her autopsy photos, other than the description of her injuries, they contributed nothing and were sensationally disturbing. What about the obvious issue that the bed rail she was supposed to have been hanging from is so close to the floor that she could have stood up? Suicidal hanging seems ridiculous given the facts.
As a prior Juneau resident and longtime Seattle guy I was extremely disgusted by The Stranger’s choice of approach regarding this topic. While I didn’t know the victim I feel the sadness of the Juneau community in every report of this story. My respect for for magazine is usually positive for the last decade. Reading this story made me shudder in revulsion and feel much sympathy to the people in her life that will read the article. Yes, people die, but that was way to much, in my humble opinion. You can do better.
Brennan H
The photos and the description of the autopsy (which I stopped reading) are just incredibly inappropriate. What was the point? Were the editors of this paper smoking crack when they let this story run? WtF?
I don’t have an issue with the photographs so much as the autopsy description, and that’s because, as you stated, there was nothing abnormal about it (other than the obvious). Anyone who suffers an unexplained or sudden death will undergo autopsy, unless there is justifiable opposition to it. While your descriptions of the images seem accurate, and while you were obviously affected by seeing them, they’re not really noteworthy in and of themselves, because they are normal. Cut open any one of us and you will see very much the same thing. I think you let your emotional response to seeing those unseen things cloud your judgement regarding whether including a description of them really added anything to the story. It didn’t, in my opinion, although overall I think the article is a good one.
http://youtu.be/E4EdIlVXftQ this is how SKY should be remembered for the beautiful spirit she is…as gene related the old ones said she lived 50 years of life in her short 22
SLIPING INTO LONELYNESS, LONGING FOR YOUR CARESS, TORTURED UNDER DURESS…OF… LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
HEARTACHES OF ENDLESS PAIN, TEARS FALL A LIKE DRIVING RAIN, REALITY OF THE INSANE…CAUSE… LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
TAUGHT YOU LOVE AN I TAUGHT IT WELL, NOW THIS LIFE IS A LIVING HELL, I REACH INSIDE TO AN EMPTY WELL…CAUSE …LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
ALWAYS PRAY TO FIND SOME HOPE, THE STRENGTH OF LOVE TO… HELP ME COPE, TIE A LIFELINE TO MY ROPE…CAUSE…LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD, LOVES VISION GROWN TO WOMENHOOD, AN I’D GIVE UP ALL I COULD…JUST TO HOLD YOU ONCE AGAIN
LIFES EVIL BROUGHT ETERNITY, LOVES SPIRIT SET YOU FREE, OH SAKARA HOW CAN THIS BE…TRUE LOVE SPIRIT WITHOUT END
ALL I WANT IS THE GOLD MINE OF LOVE, TO SING MY SONGS TO GOD UP ABOVE, WHEN IT’S TIME RETURN ALL THE LOVE…AND LIVE FOREVER MORE
SWEET SACRED DANCER THE SNOW MAIDEN, MY CREATORS NEW BEST FRIEND, ANCESTOR DANCE BRINGS LOVE AGAIN…SKY SPIRIT DANCE FOREVER MORE
I must say anyone who likes the medical examiners photos or the autopsy report is going on the sick fuck list.so many things left out of the story but I thank you for the story none of the other media would write…SKYs pediatrition would have words with the Eastgard stuff he reviewed all medical records,seattle hawaii, juneau he knew SKY from childhood…have eastgard explain why SKY would checkout six foreign films with subtitles the day of her death…spd can’t…but they made up their mind early telling everyone calling case closed before the ME’s report completed…how about no officers saw he hanging…she’s warm 5 minutes later,EMT she’s cold and rigamortis has set in …it can’t be both…why did the police let abdudo have her phone for 3 days before turning it in…why did they not interview the boy next door sleeping on the couch while this transpired…how about the neighbor upstairs who heard noises and a load crash like furniture…did they follow up with abdu’s arrest in hawaii and why he fled…there is so much more to tell…eastgard and the autopsy were a waist of space…I believe more were involved and need to be investigated but it seems I must pay for the investigation which does not come cheep.and I have not worked since this happen…Im beyond blame and anger…I know SKY would not do this…that leaves the perpetrators walking the streets…where are your daughters tonight???
As far as journalism goes, the description of the autopsy would only be relevant if the deep details of the autopsy were a focal point of the story, were somehow evidence, or were tied cohesively to the mysterious circumstances of her death. They were not. It’s not even good writing. “Scabby-looking” and comparing lips to slugs? “Three deep-blue veins running from its top to its bottom look like rivers on a map, like an Egypt with three Niles.” You’ve put too much of yourself in this description, and it detracts from her story. It’s like a weird, uncomfortable posthumous objectification. The term ‘unremarkable’ in an autopsy is common terminology meaning there’s nothing of note about it; the creative writing thing you tried to do with it didn’t really work there. Let that be your guide: There’s nothing remarkable but there is something exploitative or, at least, careless, about this description in an article that seems to want to bring justice to this girl’s life and death. That section is what people will focus too much on, not so much that You wrote that, but why
This article and its accompanying pictures are wholly disgusting. The pictures of this woman’s corpse do not belong being paraded out on this site to get you more page views. And to describe the medical examiner’s work as some kind of sadistic ritual is just downright pathetic.
You are a pitiful excuse for a writer, reporter, journalist, whatever name you so so shamefully choose to call yourself.
I won’t be coming back to The Stranger until there is a printed apology to this victim’s family.
Were the photos and detailed autopsy descriptions really necessary? It’s bad enough that she’s gone; must we be subjected to the gruesome details as well?
Done in bad taste. The pictures and autopsy details are disrespectful to the deceased and her family friends. Not impressed.
Lando (Comment 34) is the only one who has made a good critique of the autopsy. Everyone else is missing a key logical step: we all agree that the description of the autopsy and corpse is pretty gruesome, but no one is justifying the move from “this is gruesome” to “this should not be included.” They’re not one and the same.
In my mind, the autopsy is the one of the most important pieces of reporting here. Do I know what happens in an autopsy? Not really, not beyond a vague idea. Lando’s critique, the only good one, that it wasn’t worth reporting because it’s normal, is a good one. On the other hand, I think it’s important precisely because it’s normal. Why shouldn’t what is normal be put out for everyone to see?
Would it have bothered fewer people if the autopsy wasn’t tied to a name and face? Of course. But that’s neither here nor there.
Perhaps the details of the autopsy were necessary to incorporate in the article, strictly in terms of trying to identify the actual cause of Sakara’s death. But the photos were not only unnecessary, they were offensive. I knew Sakara, as did others who posted their comments here, and the photos did nothing to give greater insight to the details of her death. The way I see it, the only purpose of those photos was sensationalism. I know that Sakara is dead; I know it every day. But until today, I only saw her and remembered her as the beautiful earth-woman who danced and sang, lived and loved. I never, ever needed to see her as a corpse.
I understand that the text regarding Sakara’s autopsy was perhaps necessary in order to determine the actual cause of her death. But the photographs struck me as being nothing more than sensationalism. I knew Sakara, as did many of the people who have posted their comments here, and all the enclosed photographs did was to make this article more “gritty” and “real”. Sakara is dead; I know this every day. But the memories I have of her are of the beautiful earth goddess who danced and sang and loved. I never, ever needed to see her or remember her as a corpse.
Brendan, I applaud you for doing this story, which just wouldn’t be covered in this depth by a mainstream newspaper. I agree with the comments made by #34 that the description of the autopsy didn’t add to the story. I don’t think it did either, and if I was writing this story, would have weighed the value of including that information versus the impact it might have on Sky’s family and friends. I don’t think the public necessarily needs or wants to know those details.
At any rate, I’m glad you’re covering this story, which in most other publications wouldn’t even warrant a brief. Thank you for your reporting.
I appreciate this piece. Sky was one of my close friends. I love her. I want her family to have peace, though that may be a very long struggle. This article calls attention to Sky, and that’s the important part. If a photo helps with calling attention to the investigation, if philosophizing about Hamlet and the Virgin Suicides helps, then I’m all for it. The investigation needs to happen. Love to Sky and her family.
Wow, hearing about what the veins on this woman’s heart and her vagina looked like during an autopsy really brought this home for me. Those descriptive details certainly helped me make a deep connection with who Sky was. I mean sure, people get murdered all the time, but not women who wear menstrual pads. Great storytelling, Kiley and Stranger editorial staff.
I appreciate this piece. Sky was one of my close friends. I love her. I want her family to have peace, though that may be a very long struggle. This article calls attention to Sky, and that’s the important part. If a photo helps with calling attention to the investigation, if philosophizing about Hamlet and the Virgin Suicides helps, then I’m all for it. The investigation needs to happen. Love to Sky and her family.
Ishmael Angalook Hope
Juneau, Alaska
i’ve lived in seattle for 31 years, got to say you are the biggest pack o’ pussies i’ve encountered in all this time. what a bunch o’ little pricks. you are not seattle and never will be. a merry fuck you to all. still i love going to the bars and listen to you little fucks whine, fuck me dearly!!!
I think keeping any unsolved case in the public eye is a good thing, but I don’t understand how The Stranger was able to obtain the autopsy and related photos. Under RCW 68.50.105, the investigating agency (I’m assuming the City of Seattle) should not have released them to anyone other than another investigating agency, physician or family members. Did the family give them to you to publish?
“Each year, a handful of people in the United States die in ways that cannot be explained.”
Have you done any research?
Brendan Kiley, I urge you to watch “Post Mortem” and hopefully you will gain a better understanding of what a poorly regulated system we have for determining cause of death.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/…
The photos are the only reason I bothered reading the article…
Sakara was a friend of mine, and I wish I had seen her dance before she died. Thank you, Stranger, for bringing this case to light. She was a good person and she is missed.
I wasn’t prepared for how graphic this article is, but I am glad people are hearing Sky’s story. We all love and miss her terribly. If you want to see her vibrant spirit, please visit this tribute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4EdIlVXf…
I am so glad I got to share the stage with Sky on several occasions… Raven Odyssey, Tlingit Macbeth, and Unto These Hills, and was witness to her incredible blossoming as a beautiful human being. She was set on her way to an amazing life, but now we won’t get to see that life unfold. I hope and pray her “undetermined” cause of death becomes known. Itusixan! (We love you!)
Allan Hayton
Fairbanks, AK
I wasn’t prepared for how graphic this article is, but I am glad people are hearing Sky’s story. We all love and miss her terribly. If you want to see her vibrant spirit, please visit this tribute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4EdIlVXf…
I am so glad I got to share the stage with Sky on several occasions… Raven Odyssey, Tlingit Macbeth, and Unto These Hills, and was witness to her incredible blossoming as a beautiful human being. She was set on her way to an amazing life, but now we won’t get to see that life unfold. I hope and pray her “undetermined” cause of death becomes known. Itusixan! (We love you!)
Allan Hayton
Fairbanks, AK
I wasn’t prepared for how graphic this article is, but I am glad people are hearing Sky’s story. We all love and miss her terribly. If you want to see her vibrant spirit, please visit tribute video on Youtube, just type her name in on Youtube search.
I am so glad I got to share the stage with Sky on several occasions… Raven Odyssey, Tlingit Macbeth, and Unto These Hills, and was witness to her incredible blossoming as a beautiful human being. She was set on her way to an amazing life, but now we won’t get to see that life unfold. I hope and pray her “undetermined” cause of death becomes known. Itusixan! (We love you!)
Allan Hayton
Fairbanks, AK
First, my condolences to the family. What a terrible, terrible tragedy.
Second, I too was taken aback by the photos and the graphic autopsy descriptions. Brendan, maybe you felt that it was necessary to the story to include them; myself, I’m not so sure.
And last, I now find myself suspiciously eyeballing every dark-skinned middle-aged dreadlocked man I see on Capitol Hill, and that pisses me off. It’s too bad that, while Sky’s photos are here online for the world to see, we cannot also see a photo of her ‘boyfriend’ – the person of interest in this case. I assume there are some legal reasons for that. Still… goddamn.
I get why you chose to include the photos and graphic descriptions of the autopsy. just writing a who, where, when is impersonal and glosses over the tragedy of her death. While disturbing, it really brings across the tragic nature of sky’s death.
I thought that the story was well written, and compelling, and I hope that the authorities are able to resolve this case. I see stories in the news about murders/suicides/deaths all the time that don’t provoke a second thought. This is not one of them.
I don’t see how the graphic details of the autopsy are relevant to the article. The fact that “[n]othing about Sky’s autopsy report is remarkable” other than the note that the manner of death is “undetermined” could have been dealt with in a couple or three sentences.
What was done to her body in the course of the postmortem examination has no bearing on the circumstances of the case. If y’all needed to fill space on the page, there are such things as advertisements and pull quotes, you know…
I kind of appreciate the objective ferocity with wich this article was written. very brave indeed. cheers!
Sky’s death was so vague, sudden, and mysterious, it felt like an insult to everyone who knew her.
To me, something feels appropriate about the pictures and the autopsy description. It’s vulgar and shocking, but maybe when someone so vibrant is taken under such shoddy circumstances…it’s time to be vulgar and shocking?
I guess I feel like her death was an outrage. So, good, now we’re all outraged.
Regarding the boyfriend; either emotional abuse drove her to it (she truly was not the type. I know they never seem the type, but, really…), or he did it himself, accident or deliberate.
I wish i could know his version of why Sky was hung.
It’s just such a sad, tragic, waste.
Sky’s death was so vague, sudden, and mysterious, it felt like an insult to everyone who knew her.
To me, something feels appropriate about the pictures and the autopsy description. It’s vulgar and shocking, but maybe when someone so vibrant is taken under such shoddy circumstances…it’s time to be vulgar and shocking?
I guess I feel like her death was an outrage. So, good, now we’re all outraged.
Regarding the boyfriend; either emotional abuse drove her to it (she truly was not the type. I know they never seem the type, but, really…), or he did it himself, accident or deliberate.
I wish i could know his version of why Sky was hung.
It’s just such a sad, tragic, waste.
I get why you chose to include the photos and graphic descriptions of the autopsy. just writing a who, where, when is impersonal and glosses over the tragedy of her death. While disturbing, it really brings across the tragic nature of sky’s death.
I thought that the story was well written, and compelling, and I hope that the authorities are able to resolve this case. I see stories in the news about murders/suicides/deaths all the time that don’t provoke a second thought. This is not one of them.
dear masgroovy IS YOUR ASSHOLE JEALOUS OF THE SHIT COMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH…i’ll bet they even line up around the block to hang with you…you might make the sick fuck list…I recomend a visit to eastgard…
I get that seeing autopsy photos messes with your head. I get that the banal horror of murder seems normalized after you’ve read and written about it for a while. But every reporter has to deal with drawing a line between what shakes his or her soul and what he or she writes for the rest of us. At times, I suppose, the writing becomes a form of expiation.
But really, Brendan, I wish you’d kept that expiation to yourself. Sky’s friends and family, while they might have known all of this, really didn’t need to read it in black and white. And even if you had to write it, it shouldn’t have been out like this.
Not like this. Murder is indecent. We all know that. We don’t need you to drive home the obvious. You should have un-seen these photos at the bottom of a whiskey glass. You should have had the decency to spare the rest of us. That’s the difference between you and us.
After a while you get inured to decency. But we count on you to know when that’s happened and to have the discretion not to share it.
dear masgrovy:IS YOUR ASSHOLE JEALOUS OF THE SHIT COMING OUTTA YOUR MOUTH…YOUR JUST ABOUT ON THE SICK FUCK LIST…GET YOURSELF A SESSION WITH EASTGARD OR ARE YOU TO BUSY WAITING FOR THE LINE UP OF ALL THOSE WHO WANNA HANG WITH YA
Saves receipt from convenience store?
Knows CPR; but doesn’t know to cut someone down who is hanging.
Just about anyone would have cut her down instinctually…,dead or alive…
Wouldn’t you???
How to make the probable murder of a beautiful young women all about you.
Bunch of pussies…
“, I now find myself suspiciously eyeballing every dark-skinned middle-aged dreadlocked man I see on Capitol Hill, “
Then, sadly, I think the author had succeeded with his sadly irresponsible piece. I don’t know what happened to Sky: she sounds like a lovely person, and I’m very sorry that she’s dead.
But this piece really amounts to nothing more then a account from a clearly jealous friend who was frustrated by the Sky’s boyfriend, and a horror-porn description from an autopsy, designed to…what, exactly? excite? horrify? sicken?
There were relevant questions that could have been explored: what was the time of death? did the boyfriend have an alibi? why was Sky taking martial arts(did she feel threatened?)? had there been any history of abuse or crime?
but, no…we get this. Faux News isn’t killing journalism: BRENDAN KILEY is.
35
http://youtu.be/E4EdIlVXftQ this is how SKY should be remembered for the beautiful spirit she is…as gene related the old ones said she lived 50 years of life in her short 22
SLIPING INTO LONELYNESS, LONGING FOR YOUR CARESS, TORTURED UNDER DURESS…OF… LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
HEARTACHES OF ENDLESS PAIN, TEARS FALL A LIKE DRIVING RAIN, REALITY OF THE INSANE…CAUSE… LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
TAUGHT YOU LOVE AN I TAUGHT IT WELL, NOW THIS LIFE IS A LIVING HELL, I REACH INSIDE TO AN EMPTY WELL…CAUSE …LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
ALWAYS PRAY TO FIND SOME HOPE, THE STRENGTH OF LOVE TO… HELP ME COPE, TIE A LIFELINE TO MY ROPE…CAUSE…LOVE IS LEAVING NOW
MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD, LOVES VISION GROWN TO WOMENHOOD, AN I’D GIVE UP ALL I COULD…JUST TO HOLD YOU ONCE AGAIN
LIFES EVIL BROUGHT ETERNITY, LOVES SPIRIT SET YOU FREE, OH SAKARA HOW CAN THIS BE…TRUE LOVE SPIRIT WITHOUT END
ALL I WANT IS THE GOLD MINE OF LOVE, TO SING MY SONGS TO GOD UP ABOVE, WHEN IT’S TIME RETURN ALL THE LOVE…AND LIVE FOREVER MORE
SWEET SACRED DANCER THE SNOW MAIDEN, MY CREATORS NEW BEST FRIEND, ANCESTOR DANCE BRINGS LOVE AGAIN…SKY SPIRIT DANCE FOREVER MORE
I must say anyone who likes the medical examiners photos or the autopsy report is going on the sick fuck list.so many things left out of the story but I thank you for the story none of the other media would write…SKYs pediatrition would have words with the Eastgard stuff he reviewed all medical records,seattle hawaii, juneau he knew SKY from childhood…have eastgard explain why SKY would checkout six foreign films with subtitles the day of her death…spd can’t…but they made up their mind early telling everyone calling case closed before the ME’s report completed…how about no officers saw he hanging…she’s warm 5 minutes later,EMT she’s cold and rigamortis has set in …it can’t be both…why did the police let abdudo have her phone for 3 days before turning it in…why did they not interview the boy next door sleeping on the couch while this transpired…how about the neighbor upstairs who heard noises and a load crash like furniture…did they follow up with abdu’s arrest in hawaii and why he fled…there is so much more to tell…eastgard and the autopsy were a waist of space…I believe more were involved and need to be investigated but it seems I must pay for the investigation which does not come cheep.and I have not worked since this happen…Im beyond blame and anger…I know SKY would not do this…that leaves the perpetrators walking the streets…where are your daughters tonight???
An explanation of The Stranger‘s decision to publish these photographs and to describe the autopsy is right over here.
I didn’t know Sky, but in my opinion the graphic descriptions of her vagina & throat are unnecessary to this story and disrespectful of the deceased. It would have been easy enough to include the facts without being so lurid, which I find distracting and offensive as a reader.
I am not objecting to the bluntness, I just find that one section insensitive, even for the Stranger.
If you haven’t already read this Brendan, see out the “Minimize Harm” section of the SPJ Code of Ethics. At least check it out before you write something similar: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
Friends and family are always the last people to ask about a loved one’s propensity to commit suicide. If Sky was such a happy go-lucky young woman with so much to live for, why was she in a relationship with such an abusive asshole?
Did Kiley even try to contact her mother to find out what they talked about that night?
So? It’s entirely possible to strangle yourself from a low height, if you’re determined to end your life.
@70 I find the description much more offensive and sensationalistic than the photos. No it wasn’t a pretty death, but the level of graphic detail goes beyond factual in my opinion & doesn’t help the story.
Frizzelle, just because you chose the LEAST lurid of the photos doesn’t excuse your choosing to run them at all. It’s still lurid:
(of a description) Presented in vividly shocking or sensational terms, esp. giving explicit details of crimes or sexual matters.
Crop out the fragments of the woman’s dead body. Brendan wanted to be shocking and get attention for including images of her dead, even if they were just parts of her. Same for the textual descriptions. I don’t give a shit that the ME cut open her vagina or how her flayed throat looks in a photo. None of that is necessary for the reader to be informed of the case. As another commenter said, it’s just self-indulging philosophizing. You think you’re excusing your paper’s decisions by claiming “we wanted to present the facts”, but you forgot whether you SHOULD present them. Right alongside the fucking Hamlet references, like we needed the extra emo-juice while reading about a suicide. You are not Tim Egan and this is not good journalism.
The fact that you had to post something extra to excuse yourselves is proof that it was a bad decision that you will look back on with regret.
@ 70 Your explanation is weak tea at best. This story is lurid, plain and simple. You have reached new journalistic lows with the publication of this piece and should be embarrassed.
Our of curiosity I just looked up the link that @ 71 posted. Seem’s like Kiley and the editors missed most of the points but especially these:
— Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
— Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
— Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
— Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
Just to be clear: refusing to return Brendan Kiley’s phone calls is not an admission of guilt.
This article is disgusting. Poorly written and shows no compassion for the grieving family and friends of this poor woman. Why on earth did you publish these pictures??And the description of the autopsy????Her vagina??Really??What was the point in doing that Brendan Kiley?? You got a BIG “F”
@70 Comparing Sky’s body to the Nile, peacock feathers, slugs is not merely presenting facts; it objectifies and, as many others have commented, sensationalizes her death. The description and pictures still seem truly disrespectful to Sky’s family and memory. On the other hand, I would not be aware of this tragedy if not for The Stranger.
The photos are a questionable choice to run, but I can see how they work the point in the explanation: here are the harsh facts of this case. The editorializing about the autopsy, however, does not support the paper’s alleged determination to avoid being euphemistic or sensationalist. quite the contrary.
It feels like Kiley is trying to copy Eli Sanders’ work following the Kabelu trial. The bar on graphic reporting was set quite high this summer and apparently there’s no going back. But the human side of the story never got lost in Eli’s coverage, and the writer’s desire to understand the incomprehensible shined throughout, even when the transcripts from the trial got hard to take.
This just comes across like rubbernecking at a gory car crash.
I think that the pictures are tasteful and relevant to this story. However, the detailed description of the autopsy, including her vagina is disgusting and over the top. Shame on you.
What disgusts me about this article is not the photos or the autopsy, though both are graphic enough and rather unnecessary to the overall story. I am appalled by this virtual lynching of the boyfriend. I am confident that the Seattle Police Department is racist enough that if there was any real evidence that this dangerous-womanizing-black-muslim-dreadlocked-boyfriend potentially killed Sky, then this case would be investigated to its fullest extent. I suspect The Stranger wrote this article partly to appease (and finally stop) the friends and family who have written “hundreds” of emails. But in this process, the stranger is creating a culture of suspicion regarding the boyfriend that can be damaging far beyond his small world. This story is reinforcing societal stereotypes of the violent black man and the woman beating muslim. As evidenced by the comments of #56, all dreadlocked black men walking around Seattle are subject to conviction by those who through this article refuse to believe that Sky may actually have taken her own life. And with all due respect to her family and friends, no wonder this man will not return phone calls regarding this case. He has already been convicted in their mind.
Stranger, congratulations! You have probably rid yourself of all those annoying emails imploring you to publicly convict this black-muslim-lying-womanizing-man and in return, however unintentional, you have reinforced the white liberal racism already rampant within seattle.
What disgusts me about this article is not the photos or the autopsy, though both are graphic enough and rather unnecessary to the overall story. I am appalled by this virtual lynching of the boyfriend. I am confident that the Seattle Police Department is racist enough that if there was any real evidence that this dangerous-womanizing-black-muslim-dreadlocked-boyfriend potentially killed Sky, then this case would be investigated to its fullest extent. I suspect The Stranger wrote this article partly to appease (and finally stop) the friends and family who have written “hundreds” of emails. But in this process, the stranger is creating a culture of suspicion regarding the boyfriend that can be damaging far beyond his small world. This story is reinforcing societal stereotypes of the violent black man and the woman beating muslim. As evidenced by the comments of #56, all dreadlocked black men walking around Seattle are subject to conviction by those who through this article refuse to believe that Sky may actually have taken her own life. No wonder this man will not return phone calls regarding this case. For the family and friends he is guilty. He has been convicted in so many minds, why would he not think that the stranger would be any different.
Stranger, congratulations! You have probably rid yourself of all those annoying emails imploring you to publicly convict this black-muslim-lying-womanizing-man and in return, however unintentional, you have reinforced the white liberal racism already rampant within seattle.
(which incidentally, I’m not suggesting anything about the boyfriend’s character – just the purpose of this article and then the unintended consequences)
What disgusts me about this article is not the article, but the comments! The huge majority of comments are concerning the journalist’s choice as to what he decided to tell/show us. Who cares what you all think of the author? Not me.
Great article and I hope it reaches someone who will question and maybe become obsessed with this tragic death and solve it!
I’m glad someone finally addressed the boyfriend in the middle of this. This is such a morally gray case. If the boyfriend did murder Sakara, then he needs to be brought to justice. If he didn’t, then it’s a terrible thing to do to assassinate his character like this in a public venue. The problem is, obviously, that we don’t know the truth. I don’t know how I feel about this piece.
Regarding the autopsy description, it really felt like fetishization of the gory autopsy process. This is not a crime show, she is a real person.
It was not important to write in lurid detail what was in the autopsy photos – nor did I really need to see the photos of Sky after her death. It seems singularly disrespectful and very irresponsible. The questions and thoughts in the article should have stood on their own without that sort of shameless emotional manipulation.
i didn’t find the photo’s to be at all upsetting. The one of her neck is interesting because it shows a clear upward pull. A line that would indicate suicide, or someone standing over her pulling up.
The autopsy description was disturbing. Very much so. It made me nauseous. But, that is the reality of what an autopsy is. i took the point to be, partly, that this is what this woman had been reduced to. In fact, this is what we are all reduced to. It is our modern system of death. But it does not, in any way, negate her life.
i think that this was a beautifully written, thoughtful & compassionate article. My only points of contention are that the life of Sky was not given enough…Life. Several pictures of her death, & only one of her alive? And only a few descriptions of her as a living, loving woman. If this were my son that i was reading about, i would be seriously traumatized. Grateful that you are bringing attention to the case, but if strangers are upset reading what you wrote, imagine how the family feels. Of course, if there is ever a trial, they will see & hear much worse.
i would suggest balancing this article with one that celebrates the woman’s life. For really, the reality of the autopsy & the photo’s take on so much more intensity & depth when they are connected with a living person. And i think that her family would appreciate it.
The crime scene photographs and the overemotional description of an autopsy are really beyond the pale. You should not have published this.
THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE!
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT SAKARA’S BOYFRIEND LOOKED LIKE?
FOLLOW THIS LINK!!!!
HE WORKS AT THIS STORE CALLED MASSAI ON CAPITOL HILL!
THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE! THERE WILL BE JUSTICE!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?crop…
Bravo #76.
The description of the autopsy was in extremely poor taste. I don’t think descriptive similes are at all appropriate when discussing photos of a dead body. She was a person, not an opportunity to showcase the author’s dubious storytelling methods.
Let’s remember: a bunch of people talking smack on the internet are no more judge-n-jury than an over-enthusiastic reporter is a homicide detective.
I’m sorry this gorgeous young woman is dead, I feel for her family and friends, I am familiar with profound loss; but I’d never presume to play detective and tell them definitively why or how she died.
It’s sad that violence against women is so, SO common, so pedestrian, most people are un-phased by the photos or the autopsy description.
Dear sunchoke, If you had met the man you might understand why people think he did it. I found his ability to turn it on and off repellent. If you listened to what women you know, all the women you know, said about him you would be concerned. I asked Sky to leave him twice. He is at least guilty of causing pain, misery and acting with neglect. I hope i never see him again. I hope he never comes to Juneau.
This is not about Black Men. This is about an individual.
In the space of about three minutes, I stopped liking the Stranger.
That’s how long it took me to make it from the first facts in the article, through the implications of guilt, to the four-paragraph description of those autopsy findings.
Four paragraphs of dubious value to the story.
Four paragraphs that could have been summarized in one sentence:
“Except for signs of physical asphyxiation, Sky’s autopsy report showed nothing out of the ordinary, yet the ME listed her cause of death as ‘undetermined.'”
The piece was bullshit.
Go to the bottom of the page, click “contact,” and email the editors exactly what you think about this kind of reporting.
Editors,
As a longtime reader, I am writing to voice my disapproval of your decision to publish in its current form Brendan Kiley’s recent story on the murder of Sakara Dunlap.
You have published a defense of the piece, saying it was “all the info,” and that perhaps if we didn’t like it, that was a good, informative thing.
I would refer to Eli Sanders’ coverage of the South Park murder. Those articles not only informed, but provoked reflection.The horror of the details Sanders included was a respectful refusal to turn away from the truth. By refusing to gloss over the horrifying sexual violation of the crime, Sanders told the story of all victims of sexual violence.
Kiley’s article was the opposite. It presented facts barely related to the story and of little consequence, uniform only in their shocking intimacy. The color of the veins of the victim’s heart. The fact that the ME “scalped” her. The fact that she was wearing a menstrual pad.
I applaud your willingness to risk artful reporting. Including details not immediately relevant, and allowing a writer latitude in describing them, can inform in ways the New York Times never will. When technically irrelevant but artfully-described facts begin to outnumber those of material relevance, however, the focus of a work begins to shift toward editorializing. Dictated in a tone of authoritative objectivity, editorializing becomes sensationalism.
Journalists intrude. They expose and in a way they violate. Implicit in all of this is a trust and a promise: that they do so in the service of a greater good. That they will be stewards of those stories with which they are entrusted. That they will leave the privacy and dignity of private citizens intact wherever possible. I do not believe the allowance of public intrusion into Ms. Dunlap’s most private aspect – into her body itself, in photos and print – served any such good.
There were four paragraphs artfully describing her internal organs. One sentence would have sufficed: “Except for signs of physical asphyxiation, Sky’s autopsy report showed nothing out of the ordinary, yet the ME listed her cause of death as ‘undetermined.'”
You condescendingly implied that we who objected to these descriptions wanted the truth “glossed over,” the icky parts “omitted.” That’s an ad hominem attack. I write to object not to the inclusion of “too much information,” but to inclusion of the wrong information. Without the justification of relevance, all that printing a description of a dead woman’s vagina achieves is humiliation.
Sincerely,
He’s done a fantastic job of doing to Abdu Salaam exactly what the Italian Media did to Amanda Knox. Not only that, he did it without an arrest.
He convicted him of murder based on nothing more than a few people thinking he was creepy and that he didn’t like the what he said on a 911 call.
I’m sure Brendan has either come home to a girlfriend whom committed suicide or murdered his girlfriend at some point in the past so knows exactly what behavior is appropriate in each case, right?
Brendan needs to go back to being the dope reporter and quit pretending do be a journalist.
I am also really disappointed in you, Brendan, and in the Stranger for publishing these photos and completely unnecessary descriptions of the autopsy. I don’t think sensationalism is the proper way for this case to get attention–it’s an interesting enough story on its own, without feeling the need to get graphic. I grew up in Juneau and visit frequently, and once picked up Sky hitch-hiking. She was vibrant, funny, and kind. I really would have preferred to remember her that way, instead of now thinking about her bruised neck, what the inside of her vagina looks like, and the fact that she had her period when she was killed. These facts do not assist us, the public, in determining anything about the matter of death–as has been said, her autopsy was unremarkable. So why describe it in such detail? What is the point? What is the point of publishing those photos? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I also loved Eli’s work on the Kalebu case. It was detailed, yes, but done in a respectful and reflective way. I don’t think the Stranger would have published graphic crime scene photos out of respect to Teresa Butz’s partner. So why do it in this case?
I’m really disappointed.
From what I understand, a hanging generally looks different from a strangulation. Different bruising patterns and whatnot. And if this was part of bondage play or an attack, wouldn’t there be fresh bruises of note elsewhere?
Sometimes people just kill themselves for no apparent reason. You never know what’s going on in someone’s head.
The photos are sort of an ethical gray area that I don’t really have a problem with. They’re disturbing and serve to give the piece some gravity and emotional resonance. If they’d run the photos that show her face I’d be more offended, but I think The Stranger did well to walk the fine line between sensitivity and “here’s the ugly truth” journalism.
Can’t say the same for the description of the autopsy. That’s the equivalent of a snuff film that does nothing for the story and the staff should be ashamed of themselves.
I couldn’t read the whole article – too disturbing to think about Sky’s death – so I don’t know if anyone looked into this…the text messages that were sent from her phone after she ended her phone conversation with her mother. Did the recipients expect the messages? Were they in Sky’s voice and style of texting? Abdu Salaam could have killed her (whether accidentally or intentionally), then took possession of her cell phone to make it appear that she was still alive and sending text messages. He’s actually at the Baltic Room, using Sky’s phone to send messages as a cover-up. Those text messages could be very telling.
brendan,those were not the photos of her smiling you requested,someone likened the autopsy report to a snuff film—all graphic all real.I read the article to shawna ,in a story about death nothing is pretty…maybe you could use those other pictures in a story about LIFE.SKY was amazing as many will testify to just to meet her was a joy but to know her was to feel the love and excitment of life. Here is a young woman who on the sandy beach made from the stampmill prosess of an old gold mine would run her fingers thru the sand repeatedly saying “I LOVE LIFE,I LOVE LIFE,I LOVE LIFE” those who make comments like SKY may have done this have not tried to learn her—SAKARA KACHINA YEPA DUNLAP-facebook—sky dunlap-youtube-remembersakara@gmail.com—after telling many how much he wanted to talk to the family when a neighbor took a phone to abdu tell him someone had a question I asked “where and when did you meet my daughter?” for someone who continually harrasses young women on the streets of seattle all I got was silence…I believe more were involved and I believe SKY trusted them…that narrows it down boys time to start investigating…as SKY’s father I can not say I liked the descriptive nature of the story but Iam not offended just show something of her life…
It was, in fact, a disturbing story to read. And that is because it was a story about death. Death is, by nature, disturbing for the living.
Brendan, though I am by no means pleased about reading the autopsy information and found the pictures startling and horrific, I understand why you chose to include them. Kudos for having the balls to – I wouldn’t have. But that’s part of journalism, is it not? I felt your despair and your disgust, your empathy for Sky’s friends and family, and it was a well-written article.
Let us remember that what you see above is simply the vessel. I’m sure Sky’s friends and family would tell you that what made her extraordinary, what made her human and what made her the love of their lives is no more in that autopsy or in those photographs than a snail shell without a snail.
My thoughts and love go out to her family and friends who will never see their beloved in this life again. My hope is that since they cannot see their beloved, the photos of their beloved’s body will serve to bring them peace in the form of answers.
He is a TOTAL weirdo. He dated my friends 18 year old sister and damn near broke her arm. Then stopped me on my way down Broadway and casually asked me if I wanted to have a three some with him and his brother that was coming into town. I’ve seen him at Cal Anderson park approaching young women at the basket ball court. He is not wrapped tight, there is something seriously wrong with that man and he will strike again.
I was warned that this was gruesome and that there were pictures and descriptions. I’m glad a read it. For me, knowing as much as there is to know about what happened helps, especially when there is so much not known. It helped for me to see where this was, read what was done with her body, so I’m not stuck in an endless loop of wondering. The article doesn’t say when her time of death was. Only the times for all the phone stuff, and where Abdu Salaam was…
She was absolutely radiant. Those who speculate on whether she would Have killed herself, no way to tell what’s going on in someone’s head, etc. .. she was the brightest soul I have ever met, and that us the absolute truth. She loved life and everyone in it, and to my dying day I will never believe she would do that to herself. We are not merely grieving friends and family unwilling to believe. We knew her and find it impossible. All we have left now is her legacy of LOVE, to carry it forward into a day darkened by her absence. We can only honor her memory, now, and continue to put pressure on the spd.