Della McFarlin Brown, an American Indian/Alaska Native woman age 33, was found dead on September 2, 2000, in an abandoned shed in the Spenard neighborhood of Anchorage. Her body showed signs of a violent assault; she had been beaten and sexually assaulted, and reports say the condition of her remains shocked investigators and the local community. Accounts also emerged that people had entered the shed in the days after her death and used matches to look at the body before authorities were notified.

Attention focused on 20-year-old Joshua Wade, who witnesses said had led them to Brown’s body and boasted about the killing. Police arrested Wade later that month and charged him with murder on September 30, 2000. At trial in early 2003, jurors concluded the state had not proved murder beyond a reasonable doubt; Wade was convicted of tampering with evidence. The verdict left Brown’s family without a murder conviction.