Charging documents say an Alaska man had the cellphone of missing 10-year-old girl, and GPS coordinates of where the phone had traveled led police to the girl’s body.<\/p>\n
Peter Wilson of Kotzebue was formally charged Monday with making false statements as police tried to find Ashley Johnson-Barr, who had been missing since Sept. 6. Her body was found Friday.<\/p>\n
Wilson will make his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Anchorage on Tuesday. Online court records do not list an attorney for Wilson.<\/p>\n
An affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Michael Watson says it appears the girl was murdered, but her death remains under investigation.<\/p>\n
The affidavit says Wilson lied to investigators when he denied knowing Ashley, even though they are related.<\/p>\n
Residents in the remote Inupiat Eskimo town helped search for the girl in vain. The FBI sent 17 investigators to the community of 3,100 people on Alaska’s northwestern coast.<\/p>\n
Court records show investigators used cellphone records to find Johnson-Barr’s body. Wilson provided Johnson-Barr’s cellphone to police, saying he found it in the street. That was a lie, prosecutors say, and an FBI agent who interviewed Wilson uncovered other inconsistencies in his statements.<\/p>\n
Wilson said he didn’t drive a four-wheeler on the day Johnson-Barr went missing. Other witnesses told the FBI that Wilson used one to leave his home for about two hours that day.<\/p>\n
Cellphone records provided by GCI to police indicate that Johnson-Barr’s cellphone traveled from Rainbow Park — where the girl was last seen — to a brushy location two miles east of town. That was where police and the FBI found her body.<\/p>\n
In Kotzebue, Terri Walker, assistant superintendent of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District, said counselors were on hand at the girl’s school for students who needed them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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