The deaths of three women over the course of one week has spurred some residents of the central Kenai Peninsula to reach out to support the families left behind.<\/p>\n
Soldotna resident Yvonne Anderson, 45, was found dead in the woods near mile 4 of the Kenai Spur Highway the day after Christmas. The following Tuesday, Kenai resident Ruth Holliday, 31, was killed in a two-car accident on Bridge Access Road. Then, 34-year-old Iva \u201cMitsy\u201d Berninger, who had been missing from her Kenai apartment since Dec. 11, was found dead near a trail in Kenai on Friday.<\/p>\n
Tricey Katzenberger runs the organization Bear Hugs, which fills backpacks with clothing, toothbrushes, books and other items to give to children in need. The group put together 12 backpacks for the three women\u2019s children, the last of which were delivered on Saturday, Katzenberger said.<\/p>\n
She said backpacks were given to two of Anderson\u2019s four children, and to her grandchild. They were also given to Holliday\u2019s four children and Berninger\u2019s five children.<\/p>\n
Katzenberger said her family has ties to Holliday, and that she didn\u2019t hesitate to help when she heard the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that she had kids, and I knew she had young kids and so it wasn\u2019t even a question,\u201d Katzenberger said.<\/p>\n
Upon learning of the deaths of Anderson and Berninger, Katzenberger filled the rest of her backpacks for their children as well. Members of the community pitched in with both donated items and monetary contributions, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the reason we\u2019d like to be handing out backpacks for,\u201d Katzenberger said. \u201cIt was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
A GoFundMe webpage has also been set up by Holliday\u2019s sister, Annette Erickson, to raise funds to support her family. Family members will take over care of Holliday\u2019s four children. The plight of the children is one of the main reasons Erickson created the page.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like they would need money for the funeral and the kids, because the four kids still so young are still very expensive,\u201d Erickson wrote in an email. \u201cI felt like we raised almost $8,000 in just three days because Ruth was very genuine, kind and sweet to others all the time; when she was little, as she grew up, and as an adult \u2014 just a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of Sunday afternoon, the page had accumulated more than $7,900 for the family and funeral expenses.<\/p>\n
Kenai Police said in a previous interview that Holliday\u2019s vehicle crossed over into oncoming traffic before the crash, but that the cause for that is still being investigated. Alaska State Troopers said previously that the cause of death for Anderson could take several weeks to uncover, pending a toxicology test by the State Medical Examiner.<\/p>\n
Sgt. Jay Sjogren of the Kenai Police Department said on Sunday that he was not able to comment on the Berninger case.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Megan Pacer is a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The deaths of three women over the course of one week has spurred some residents of the central Kenai Peninsula to reach out to support the families left behind. Soldotna resident Yvonne Anderson, 45, was found dead in the woods near mile 4 of the Kenai Spur Highway the day after Christmas. The following Tuesday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24375"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}