'Sisters of the Midnight Sun' by Rebecca Wright Stevens

Former North Slope Borough Public Defender Rebecca Wright Stevens has published a memoir "Sisters of the Midnight Sun" that details her life in Utqiagvik (Barrow), her relationship with an Iñupiat man, the drinking parties she attended and one time hosted, and the horrific double murder of two local sisters where she defends one of the suspects.

I am in the unusual position of having reported on the same case when I was editor of The Arctic Sounder covering the North Slope. I am also mentioned in her book, but not in a positive way.

"... I spotted Ed Ellingsworth, local lead detective, his cadaverous frame drooping over a corner of a pew. A young female reporter sat beside him, plump and giggly. I rather liked the way she never spelled the district attorney's name right. The name was Slusser, but she always wrote Slusher. She also garbled some Inupiat words, and used k, q, and g interchangeably, but so did a lot of people. The language is not yet entirely standardized, but then, neither is English. At least she had learned that Iñupiat was a noun and Iñupiaq an adjective."

(NOTE: In Associated Press Alaska Style Iñupiat refers to many and Iñupiaq refers to one person or the language. I took Iñupiaq classes when I lived there.)

Aside from that, it is a well-written book, but one that does not really detail the evidence that linked her client, Amos Lane of Point Hope, to the murders. His family was influential in Point Hope.

The prosecutors turned their attention from Amos Lane to John Adams.

Adams, engaged to Bernice Ipalook, was found not guilty on two counts of murder in the first degree of Bernice and her sister Wanda Ipalook, which took place in 1993.

"At the time of his interrogation, Adams did have scratches on his face and bruises on his knuckles. And Adams did sign a confession and indicated some knowledge of the way the murders occurred, but he later claimed that he did not do it," I wrote when I was covering the case for the Arctic Sounder.

Adams' defense lawyer, Nelson Traverso, of the Fairbanks Office of Public Advocacy, told The Arctic Sounder, "I'm just overwhelmed with emotion right now. I think there was a lot of wrestling to do with the evidence (for the jury). There was too much evidence that led a trail to the other guy."

Jury member Dick Rohr in speaking about the verdict to the Arctic Sounder said, "Well, we didn't think that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We don't think he was. We had doubts. And there was a lot of doubts. So, that was the reason basically."

Lane gets immunity

Never charged with the murders, "Amos pled not guilty to one count of perjury," Wright Stevens writes. "He acknowledged that that the state had compelling evidence that he had been at house 1541, but he never admitted he was there much less that he had hurt anyone. True to form, he never admitted anything at all during the entire duration of both cases, the double homicide and the perjury charge. He was released for time served."

Wright Stevens notes that Lane was emotionally damaged when his mother was brutally raped in 1985 and died the next day from her injuries. Some friends said he was never the same person after that.

However, there was much evidence that put him at the scene of the crime but it was dismissed.

"There was DNA evidence that appeared to confirm Amos had been with the sisters that night, but I managed to get it suppressed because the statistical sampling of "Eskimo DNA" was insufficient for comparison purposes," she writes.

Other evidence was ignored.

"Evidence at the scene, footprints on a pane of glass, glass fragments on clothing, buttons found throughout the house, an appointment card in the trash and semen samples were linked to an alleged suspect, Amos Lane.

Witnesses testified that his movements allegedly did not coincide with the time of the murders," I reported.

Lane was granted immunity from prosecution for his testimony against Adams, meaning he could never be tried for the murders.

"Dennis Packer, director of the North Slope Borough of Public Safety, was, at the time of the murders, the investigator on the case. He testified that a bloody towel found at the scene was sent to the state crime lab for blood and hair samples, but a test was never received back. A black, torn T-shirt belonging to Amos Lane 'could have had blood stains on the shirt,' but it was not sent to the lab. On the stand, Packer said that on further inspection, the reddish stains appeared to be a discoloration on the design. He also said that the tears seemed to be done in a deliberate fashion, somewhat like a workout shirt," I wrote in the article.

And I wondered how an inspector is elevated to Chief of Police after just a year.

Some thoughts

In reading this book I was puzzled by some of Wright Stevens' activities that exposed her to possibly dangerous situations when there was heavy drinking. As I read, I was thinking she was present when things could go horribly wrong and she would end up getting more clients to defend.

After she received the call that Adams was found not guilty, she writes, "I dropped the phone on the floor, picked it up, hung up the receiver and went into the kitchen, where I burrowed into the back of the cupboard for the bottle of vodka I had been hoarding ever since I bought it from a bootlegger."

I am at a loss to understand how an attorney can break the law by giving money to a bootlegger.

So, for all the words, the story ends with a simple sentence that says it all, "The jury had spoken, but the Ipalook murder case had not been solved."

In June 2022, Lane, 57, was killed in a law enforcement shoot-out.

An online court records search for Amos Lane shows a history of criminal cases dating back more than 20 years.