body floating in mchugh creek, a few miles from anchorage. at first, they didn t know who it was. no idea on the body. alaska state troopers finally figured it out from the class ring she was wearing. but karen could not take it in. not bonnie, her model child. her conscientious college freshman, who she knew was going to school that day. not hiking. miles and miles from home and the university. none of it made sense. she didn t drive, so how did you get out there? somebody would have had to be with her. and she would not have missed school. she absolutely did not go out there on her own. in fact, bonnie s sister heard her get up that morning at 5 am and set out on her 45 minute walk through the predawn dark, to catch the bus that will take her to her 7 am class at the university. she usually didn t return home till about 10 pm. packing most of her classes
and you can t believe that your baby is lying there, cold and lifeless. the next day, karen saw her baby again. saw more than her face. i noticed something that seemed to confirm what she already believed. it wasn t a hiking accident. she called the alaska state troopers. her knuckles were broken, so, i m on the phone screaming to them saying, no you ve got to get back you, have to take more pictures. these are defensive wounds. look again at bonnie s body she said. look harder. what happened to bonnie craig that september day screamed karen, was murder. coming up i think my mom felt very responsible. like, i caused this? i caused this, yeah. they killed bonnie because of something i did. was her child s death revenge? when dateline continues.
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they retested it and it turned out it wasn t him ouch. no one could believe it. back at square one? back at square one. and dealing with karen again. karen ramped up her campaign to keep the case in the public eye. bonnie s mother, karen campbell continues her own crusade to find her daughters killer. she remains unsatisfied with the investigation. the attention brought in tips. troopers eventually tested more than 100 dna samples. and nothing came of it but frustration. the case grew cold. as cold as some of the winter nights up here. and four years became six, eight, ten. the case faded from the public spotlight. so around thanksgiving, 2006, 12 years after the murder when trooper hunyor answer the phone one day couldn t believe it. the director of the state crime lab contacted me and said that they just got information that there was a match to the codis
it was in the nineties sometime. i just start talking to him about his life. where he grew up, where he went to school. how he got up into alaska. so you didn t jump right in and say we know you killed this girl? no. just try to gain some report with him. basically we smoked and joked for a while. did you travel to the state quite a bit? a little bit. it went up to denali a couple times with friends from the military. i ve been to maybe, valdes a few times, i like it down there. found out he was a fifth degree black belt, martial arts. he was ranked number 10 in the world in a fighting competition. wow. he liked a brawl in bars as he said. carried martial arts weapons in his car, including nun chucks. that was his thing. he loved it. he loved the adventure. he was married at the time of bonnie s murder. but later got divorce. that was the worst thing i ve ever scored in my life is that marriage right there. i love her to death, yeah. told you all of this. yes.