Travis Beals/photo courtesy Frank Kovalchek at Wikimedia Commons
© 2016 craigmedred.news All Rights Reserved
A little over a month ago, 24-year-old Travis Beals from Seward happily rode into Nome behind a team of six dogs to claim his second top-20 finish in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and collect a check for nearly $17,000.
On Tuesday, the 2015 winner of the Horizon Lines Most Improved Musher award is scheduled to appear in court to face charges of assaulting his fiancee, another Iditarod musher. It is not the first time. Beals was in the summer of 2015 convicted on charges related to an earlier assault on the same woman.
At that time, the victim told Alaska State Trooper Eric Jeffords that “Travis had hit her and hurt her. (The victim) stated she had not reported those incidents because she thought Travis was just struggling with his mental health issues. (The victim) states on one occasion Travis struck her in the arm and broke her arm.”
Despite pending domestic violence charges and a history of domestic violence that appears worse than that of disgraced former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, the Iditarod allowed Beals to run the 2016 race. His fiancee, who has stuck to his side despite the abuse, competed in the same event.
Rice witnessed a much different treatment. He was indefinitely suspended from the National Football League in 2014 after it was revealed he had knocked out then-fiancee Janay Palmer. Rice has yet to return to professional football, and there is increasing speculation he might never find a team willing to take him back.
Iditarod Trail manager Mark Nordman said Friday that the Beals case might have been handled differently if Iditarod had been aware of his prior conviction.
“I didn’t know anything about how he was convicted on anything before,” Nordman said. “Was I aware of the pending charge? Yes.”
Iditarod legal counsel, however, advised the race let Beals run, Nordman said.
“What can I do,” he added.
No one is talking
Beals could not be reached for comment. His phone at Turning Heads Kennel said it was full and could not take messages. He did not respond to a message sent him on Facebook.
Beals’ domestic violence cases have gone unreported in Alaska up until now despite several reporters and a large segment of the mushing community knowing the history. The victimization of the female musher in question appears to date back to not long after her arrival in the state from the East Coast more than five years ago.
Friends said efforts to separate her and Beals went nowhere. The victim has expressed the view she wants to be the next Susan Butcher, the winningest woman in Iditarod history, and some think she has so convinced herself that Beals is the ticket to Iditarod success that she is willing to suffer his abuse.
Only 14 days after he was charged in late 2015, she delivered to the Palmer court a handwritten note saying she “would like to remove the no-contact order on Travis Beals starting immediately.”
Beals has shown some mushing success. An Iditarod rookie in 2013, he finished an impressive 11th in only his third race in 2015. His performance slipped this year, but training was interrupted by domestic problems which seemed to be temporarily over by the March start of the Iditarod.
Beals’ Facebook page showed him and his fiancee hugging at the start line. She did not return a message asking for comment for this story. Her name is being withheld to protect her privacy.
She is not the first person to become obsessed with the Iditarod and make questionable personal decisions. The Iditarod has some history of people burning up their life savings and exposing themselves to considerable danger or injury to ride behind a dog team for 1,000 miles across Alaska. The race has never killed anyone, but it has left many frostbitten.
Beals, like his fiancee, is among those consumed by an Iditarod dream.
“As a young child, Travis often wandered the dog lot, baby blanket dragging behind,” it is written on the webpage for the Turning Heads Kennel. “His parents would often have to remind him not to share his bottle with his companions, but he proved to be a poor listener. Whenever Travis was upset, he’d visit with the dogs. His parents once thought he’d run away, only to find him asleep with one of the dogs inside its dog house.”
Treatment or jail time?
The assault charges for which Beals is appearing before a so-called “CRP hearing” next week stem from an incident in Willow just before Christmas. Willow is a small community about 75 miles north of Anchorage where dozens of mushers live and train their dogs in the winter. CRP stands for “Coordinated Resource Project,” a mental health review that seeks to steer offenders away from jail and into mental health treatment programs.
Beals appears to have an anger-management problem.
According to court documents, the latest attack on his fiancee began with “an argument about their dog team training. Beals took (the victim’s) vehicle keys from” her and tried to drive off in her truck. She opened the truck door in an effort to stop him “and was struck by the door of the truck,” the affidavit drafted by Trooper Wallace Kirksey says.
The victim then fled to a cabin and locked herself inside to avoid Beals, according to the affidavit, which continues in this way:
“Beals entered the cabin through a window and grabbed (the victim) in a headlock, picking her up off the couch, physically escorted her to the door and pushed her out of the cabin into the yard, causing (her) to be placed in fear of imminent physical injury….Beals grabbed (her) personal belongings after throwing her out of the house, including but not limited to a Samsung Galaxy tablet with an approximate value of $200, and threw the items onto the ground in the yard breaking the Samsung tablet.”
The temperature in Willow on the day in question was somewhere around 10 degrees. The affidavit did not say how the victim was dressed.
As with other incidents involving Beals, this one went unreported. His public image, like that of most Iditarod mushers, circles somewhat glowingly around his love of the state’s premier sporting event – “The Last Great Race.”
“Despite the rush of achieving his lifelong goal being behind him,” the Peninsula Clarion newspaper reported after his rookie race, “Beals can now channel his effervescent energy to besting the mushers he used to daydream about in elementary school.”
Both Iditarod racers and the Iditarod race have achieved iconic status in the Alaska media thanks primarily to two women — Libby Riddles and the late Susan Butcher. An attractive blonde who later appeared in Vogue magazine, Riddles became the first woman to win the 1,000-mile Iditarod in 1985 by braving a Bering Sea storm that most of the men in the race thought too much to tackle.
Her historic victory vaulted a little-known race across the wilds of the north onto the international stage. Butcher cemented it there by winning four of the next five races. Through the mid-1980s and into the 1990s, Alaska was known as “The Place Where Men are Men and Women Win the Iditarod.”
Butcher was for most of that period every bit as famous as former Alaska Gov. and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin would later become. As the Iditarod grew and flourished in the wake of those two past champions, hundreds of thousands of people joined the ranks of race fans clinging to a mythical view of brave people and tough dogs challenging a dangerous winter wilderness.
Alaska’s beloved race
The fans, and sometimes the media, now react strongly to any stories or comments that might tarnish this image. Because of that, questions have occasionally been raised as to how thoroughly the Iditarod and some of its local-celebrity participants are scrutinized.
After craigmedred.news earlier this year revealed an unreported assault had followed two highly publicized assaults on well-known mushers along the trail, the state’s largest news organization focused not on the details of what had happened, but whether the story should have been reported at all because the Iditarod and the musher involved prefered to keep quiet an assault which took place on a public trail used to stage the state’s highest profile sporting event.
The victim was “‘extremely disappointed’ (craigmedred.news) did not respect her request for privacy,” wrote the Alaska Dispatch News. The victim, it said, “praised the Iditarod for not issuing a public statement during the race, saying such a statement would have brought unnecessary attention and would have been a ‘huge emotional distraction.’
“‘The sensation that this has caused has only reaffirmed my belief that things were properly handled at the time.’….The Iditarod ‘continues to be extremely supportive’ in figuring out ways to improve musher safety.”
The adn.com story offered no insight into exactly how things were handled by the Iditarod, or what the Iditarod had done or is doing to improve musher safety. The story raised obvious questions as to how aggressively the state’s largest news organization was likely to pursue character flaws in someone like Beals, one of the young and emerging heroes of the Superbowl of Alaska.
The Beals case, with its strong similarities to the case of the NFL’s Rice, raises the same difficult, complicated and confounding questions about domestic violence. Rice knocked out fiancee Janay Palmer with a vicious left cross to her jaw after a fight in casino elevator in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Palmer, however, stood by her man, later married him, and made national television appearances in an attempt to help him regain employment in the National Football League.
America’s highest profile sporting organization, the NFL at first reacted to the assault by suspending Rice for two games, but after the video of the knock out surfaced at TMZ.com, the NFL suspended the running back indefinitely and the Ravens terminated his contract even though the victim protested that he should be allowed to continue to play.
Meanwhile, as SB Nation reported, the league instituted a policy requiring “a six-game suspension without pay for the first offenses, and a lifetime ban for second offenses….(to) apply to all NFL personnel, including executives and owners.”
The Rice case began a discussion of domestic violence as it related to professional sports. Many sports followed the lead of the NFL in cracking down on such abuse.
“Despite the lack of a written domestic violence policy, when allegations were made against (NASCAR) race car driver Kurt Busch (in 2015), the league suspended him and made him meet certain criteria before he could drive again,” American Bar.org, a publication of the American Bar Association, reported last year.
The Iditarod has no domestic violence policy, but before the March start of this year’s race Nordman warned mushers that “if people are not respectful to these events, we don’t have to accept any entry…if you’re a negative person and not toeing the line on promoting this race, we don’t have to accept your entry. It’s not a God-given right to run this race, it’s a privilege.”
The warning, however, was aimed mainly at public-relations issues, which the Iditarod instituted a gag order to try to control. Nordman on Friday said the organization hadn’t thought about domestic-violence, but obviously that issue has now been forced upon the organization.
“We’re discussing it daily now,” he said. “It’s something we’ve got to look at.”
Iditarod, an event always sensitive about maintaining a dog-friendly image, has a domestic violence problem that goes beyond that faced by other sports, given an increasingly well-established link between domestic violence and animal abuse.
“Women residing at domestic violence shelters were nearly 11 times more likely to report that their partner had hurt or killed pets than a comparison group of women who said they had not experienced intimate violence,” said a 2007 study in “Violence Against Women.” Reports of threatened harm to pets were more than four times higher for the group. Using the Conflict Tactics Scale, the authors demonstrated that severe physical violence was a significant predictor of pet abuse.”
Historically, the Iditarod has been aggressive in dealing with mushers caught publicly abusing dogs. Musher Jerry Riley, an Alaska Native from Nenana, was booted from the Iditarod for nine years after he failed to report he’d injured a dog while breaking up a dog fight, and two-time race runner-up Ramy Brooks, an Alaska Native from Healy, was suspended from racing for two years and put on probation for three more after it was reported he kicked some dogs and hit others with a ski pole.
Brooks never returned to the Iditarod. Riley hasn’t run a race since 2003. The Iditarod has never suspended or banned anyone for domestic violence.
Clarification: The photo atop this story was changed on April 24, 2016 to end a distracting debate about the “fair-use doctrine” as it applies to journalism and Facebook photos.
Categories: News, Outdoors, Uncategorized
Dear Craig Abby…
This is what a judge said in a bond court hearing in Tampa, FL: “80% of women murdered in the United States are a result of domestic violence.”
Well Craig, thank you for reporting this. I’m the gal that the ITC threw off 4th st at the start of the race due to my service dog. ADN did an article back then and I tried to contact you with the info. Glad to see you finally step up to the plate and tell this story. I don’t think ppl realize how far back this goes or how deep the corruption within the ITC is. I tried to tell ppl. No one believed me. Maybe, just maybe, now the ITC will HAVE to clean up their act? I too fell in love with this race decades ago ( was going to run it myself before the car accident ) and love that old race. Not so much this new one though nor those running this race. I think this whole mess DOES shed a lot of light on the fact that the ITC has been covering up a lot for a long time. I miss the old race. Again, thanks for telling the story, it needed to be told.
Craig, thank you once again for reporting on stuff that really matters. Domestic violence in Alaska is such a huge problem that is often swept-under-the-rug to protect the victims. Unfortunately this covering-up does nothing to solve the problem and it continues to fester. The Iditarod race, of which I am a fan should be a leader in this regard.
The Iditarod good old boys are concerned that the general public will deduce with rational thought…if he has been charged with DV multiple times, then he is probably hurting dogs…(what did the ten he dropped in the race look like).
And, if the whole club is turning their backs to his girlfriend in obvious time of need, then the good old boys really don’t give a shit what mushers do to the dogs.
People, law enforcement is on it. This is not the fault of the Race or Nordman. Mushers sign up in June and show up for a race in March if they happen to be “at large.” There is no year round contract (nor compensation) like the NFL.
Careful how much you ask the Race to monitor mushers’ criminal records. Some of your favorites may have never been allowed to enter.
As for guilt-tripping friends or other mushers, not much can be done if the victim is a volunteer.
Law enforcement is on it.
Excellent post, Mitch.
As a woman who has experienced domestic violence first hand, and a personal friend of the two “characters” in your “story,” I am quite disappointed by your gossip column. Great, good, and even decent reporting of news makes sure to leave personal opinion, judgement and assumptions out of the report. Please stick to the facts. Your gossip column has now inspired readers to extrapolate further.
Even if your story was factual, I would have issues with it. Whether people have mental health issues or not (but especially when they do, which you repeatedly imply), writing vicious articles is completely unnecessary. Please explain the benefit of writing with your seething style – to you, the individuals discussed, or the public. If there is no benefit, what is the purpose? Gossip column? Attention?
My last comment: there are always two (or more) sides to a story.
Jessica: reporters are limited by the facts available. the “gossip” to which you refer comes from the statements of the victims in court documents. i do admit to a personal opinion here: i don’t think women should beat women. i also have been at this long enough to know that all stories are a bunch of greys. it is why i reached out to both Travis Beals and the victim to give them a chance to expand on what is in court documents. they chose not to engage that opportunity. i think you say it all when you observe “even if your story was factual, i would have issues with it.” it is factual; and that is why you have issues with it. i implied nothing about Beal’s mental health. i quoted from the court documents wherein his victim said “she thought Travis was just struggling with his mental health issues.” i also noted the court ordered a mental health hearing. that doesn’t imply anything. those are facts from which you inferred “personal opinion, judgement and assumptions” on my part. i have no opinion as to Beals’ health. plenty of men with no real mental health issues have been known to abuse women. even more healthy people are sent to court-ordered mental health hearings. and i don’t know if Beals abused anyone here. i know what the victim said. it is always possible she is lying. that’s why we have trials. what i do know, from talking to a lot of people, is that this couple has issues and needs help. that hasn’t happened. maybe it will now. hiding problems doesn’t make them better; it just allows them to grow into bigger problems.
Craig: First of all, I did not give you permission to use my name (hence the initials). I take that as yet another sign of your lacking ethical principles. Next, and repetitively, I have experienced DV. I want to make it clear that no person (man or woman) should be abused, whether physically, emotionally, financially, verbally, sexually, or in any other form.
Perhaps the parties involved are dealing with excessive stress (which you have now added to) and don’t want to deal with publicity.
Regarding mental health, your focusing on that in the story has now led your readers to extrapolate on the subject – making comments that “she” is the one who needs mental health help. Readers have made other assumptions as well, which have no backing and are completely false.
Once again, I ask you to “please explain the benefit of writing with your seething style – to you, the individuals discussed, or the public. If there is no benefit, what is the purpose?”
Jessica: A.) I manage the website on which you decided to comment. I don’t need your “permission” to do anything. You gave it when you decided to post. I could require you use your full name to comment here, but I cut you some slack because I semi-believe the claims you are making. B.) Don’t be so self-involved. Jessica is one of the most common women’s names in the country, and you could be anyone making up everything since I didn’t bother to track you down and establish your bona fides. There’s no good evidence, at this point, to indicate you are even a woman. You could be some bored weirdo named Freddy in Costa Rica who was surfing the web looking for something to talk about and decided to jump in here. But I’m going to assume you know the couple in question, just so I can agree that you are probably right that they (“the parties involved,” really?) were dealing with excessive stress when this assault happened. Running Iditarod can be hugely stressful. It might simply be that Beals and his victim or both are not suited to this stress. So what exactly did you do to help? Could you please explain why you’ve allowed this to continue for months and years? I’m sure that when the story got out it did cause all sorts of people to have thoughts about Beals and the victim. I’d guess more than a few have thoughts about you after reading your post. I can’t control what people think. And I’m pretty liberal in moderating comments as you can see from reading yours here. I’m not going to spike your comments or defend the comments of other readers. But if you know anything about domestic violence, you know something similar to Stockholm Syndrome is quite common, and it’s not unreasonable to believe the victim might be suffering from that or something similar. If that is so, “she” would benefit from mental-health care. Mental illness is not a sin; it’s an illness. It is not something of which to be ashamed, and neither is domestic violence. DV happens to old women, young women, college-educated women, high school dropouts, even some men. Victims need to get themselves out of the situation, which is not as easy as it sounds, and get help. That’s the point of this story. I don’t know how good a friend you are of the victim, but another friend told me she’s not a normal victim; her family has money; she can afford to leave. That is a sadly misguided view. She is like every other victim. She’s held hostage to emotions that keep her in a bad situation. She needs help to break the cycle. Quit pestering me and go help her or get her help. That would be the responsible thing to do. You claim to be a friend. Act like one instead of wasting your time accusing some reporter of writing “gossip.” This isn’t gossip. These are facts as documented in court files. How badly does she have to be injured before “you” act?
Craig:
A) You do manage a website that I chose to comment on. As you said, you could have required me to use my full name. If that were the case, I may have made another decision about commenting. However, you posted my name from my email response, rather than what I entered on your page.
B) You have, once again, provided a beautiful example of the personal opinion, judgement, and use of assumptions I mentioned in my initial comment, and have failed, once again, to answer the question from my original email.
Good night.
J.G.: I answered your question at some length. Go read the post. You, however, did not answer mine: “How badly does she have to be injured before ‘you’ act?” Knocked senseless? Hospitalized? What the hell kind of friend worries more about the media reports than about a friend being physically abused, anyway. I’m skeptical you’re a Jessica anybody. I’m guessing more likely a George jailed for DV who somehow gained access to the prison computer and doesn’t think people should talk about this subject.
Craig: Please point out where you answered my question… “Please explain the benefit of writing with your seething style – to you, the individuals discussed, or the public. If there is no benefit, what is the purpose? Gossip column? Attention?”
As far as your pathetic attacks on my character…I have no need to defend myself. You have made yourself look like a fool, as expected. I know where I stand.
Kudos to you, if your goal was to humiliate victims of domestic violence and to presume guilt on the accused – before the justice system. You are, apparently, a God in your own right. Congratulations.
Women don’t often report assault. That Travis’ fiancee has taken it this far to report, means this is more than likely a habitual occurrence throughout their relationship. A form of Stockholm syndrome often keeps a woman in this type of relationship. I feel for the victim. She is in a very tough spot.
Physical assaults on women are often dismissed by law enforcement or end in a long process that drag the victim’s name through the mud and forces her to revisit the assault again and again. Because of this, assaults or abuse of women are not reported very often. As the near victim of stranger-rape in a remote forested area, I can attest. I never reported it for these reasons.
It’s time the culture of silence, of blaming the victim, was broken. I’m glad this is public, and I think it’s time we stopped making excuses.
Thanks for writing this, Craig. I think the ADN has a vested interest in keeping the Iditarod image “clean”. It’s very interesting.
Peace for the victim. I hope she can figure a way out and move forward toward her mushing dreams.
You’re awesome Craig. Keep reporting. Love your site.
Craig,
Thank you for leading the pack with some real investigative journalism, Beals is a danger to his girlfriend and potentially others on his path…maybe just a few Alaskans will wake up to what culling doglots does to young men & woman in our community.
This is a situation that needs to be resolved privately, however neither need to be involved with the Iditarod while their problems are ongoing. I am disappointed in the Iditarod for allowing this. What were they thinking??? She is in as need of counseling and treatment as he is, because she has enabled the bad behavior by not following through with prior charges. I am also very concerned about the possibility of a link between out of control anger and mental illness, effecting the animals in their care.
Craig, your a frickin trouble maker. stick to outdoor reporting…it suits you better than being a politically correct investigator.
And if he’s beating up a woman, what’s he doing to the dogs? They can’t press charges.
“charges of assaulting his fiance”
Friendly edit – since it appears that the person to whom Beals is engaged to be married is female, this should really be “fiancee.” (Or fiancée vs. fiancé, if you want to be precise about it – but my real point is just that it’s -ee for a woman, -e for a man.)
Not saying you don’t know this, just that it didn’t happen in this article.
thank you, thank you. free editing is the best part of the internets.
No problem. If you’re going to write (pretty much) for free, I can edit for free.
Okay, one more edit: If you link to CourtView, even if you’re looking at case 3AN-15-12345CR at the time that you copy the link, that link just sends you to the CourtView main page by the time you send it to anyone else. A more helpful cite would be to the CourtView front page, but would also give a case number. (This tech issue drives me crazy all the time in my day job.)
I’m always sad to read these stories because there’s pain abound, You’ve touched on myriad issues. Is injuring a dog the same as injury to a person, during a dispute, after which the person declines to press charges and continues the relationship with the aggressor… Does a domestic, personal matter between two consenting adults, resulting in injury and police report, invoke a rule change within their professional sport that imposes a sanction… Is there more to the story? Meaning, is this like the tort principle for a plaintiff in an injury case “res ipsa loquitur” (the thing speaks for itself), or is Craig’s description of events incomplete (because they declined to interview) and that’s why the couple is still together…. Is there any sympathy, or better yet some empathy, for this couple and positive reinforcement from the community to seek and receive mental health counseling, and if necessary, drug/alcohol treatment if related – or better we ban and punish and toss in a jail as Peggy so colorfully opines… The narrative on this one I come away with is Travis needs to be open and honest with the Iditarod management, seek and complete treatment, make an about-face in his life’s choices, and then speak to Alaskans about how bad decisions and harmful actions can be transformative in a positive, endearing when you recognize your problem and change. I’d like to see everyone at the end of your story learn from this and positively grow. I wouldn’t mind reading in your conclusion about two talented mushers living a purpose-driven life, and maybe even as husband and wife some day, so here’s hoping for a Part 2 and an inspiring rest of the story… Thanks for the opportunity to comment Craig.
Tim, too bad it wasn’t an ipod and was actually his cell phone. Another attempt of iditarod covering up for a musher. I think iditarod is going to take a look at this. Just simply not something that has been thought about.
Carry the wrong iPod, you’re out of the race. Break the arm of another musher, everything’s cool. The Iditarod according to Nordman.
The Iditarod has some very specific rules that include not having a device that allows you to communicate a long distance. Any violence to or neglect of the dogs has harsh consequences. Domestic violence has not been a problem in the race until now that I am aware of. Due to the increasing number of women in the race, as well as racing couples, it is clearly time for the race committee to look into rules to prevent or punish future transgressors.
Viginia, That’s great there are specific rules the Iditarod has for digital devices. But it is not great that enforcement of specific rules is haphazard and at the whims and discretion of a race marshall. Like not evicting Buser for sending his tracker device home, or not evicting Dee Dee for leaving her tracker device in Takotna, yet evicting Brent for carrying a digital device he did not intend to use. That reeks of good ole boy cronyism. And the good ole boy business model is not one that garners respect from the public (exhibit A: the US house and senate).
Back on topic: Per the domestic violence issue, I’m thinking folks here don’t get the big picture. The Iditarod is a sled dog race. Note: dog, it’s about the dogs. People with court-decreed anger management issues usually have anger control problems not only with spouses or equivalents, but often with every body and every thing. And that includes dogs. People can stand up for themselves, and fight back or call the cops. Dogs can’t. So if someone is charged with DV and is known to be a violent person, it is in the best interest of dog mushing and the Iditarod to get that person the fuck away from any dogs. A good way of doing this is to ban DV’ers from the Iditarod. That last thing dog mushing and the Iditarod needs is a DV’er/anger management program attendee to go whacko in a dog yard and have the humane society troops feed off of that. And have dogs hurt.
the article states that legal advice to Iditarod was to allow him in the race. They really had no choice
peg, there’s a reason it is called “advice.”
My armchair legal analysis:
– the Iditarod is a private organization. It is not a state actor. (That’s why it can, for example, impose speech restrictions that would clearly be 1st Amendment-violative if the government set those rules.)
– private citizens still have to follow state and federal laws – the Iditarod couldn’t, for example, decide to bar African-American mushers, as that would violate multiple civil rights statutes.
– never say never, but I cannot conceive of a state or federal law that would mean that Beals has to be allowed to participate in a private organization’s race.
(* but if they tried to keep him off the trail entirely – i.e, if he showed up as an individual and wanted to traverse this trail on a certain date and they told him he couldn’t do that – that could get legally interesting)
– if the Iditarod doesn’t have race rules that would allow them to bar the participation of any potential musher for any reason they find reasonable, or in their discretion, or something to that effect… then they’re not getting very good legal advice.
(Obvious disclaimers: I am making these observations based only on the limited information available to me, do not intend for anyone to take or refrain from taking legal action on this basis, and would encourage anyone who reads this to retain legal counsel before doing so.)
… now I’m curious – Craig, do you know who the Iditarod’s legal counsel is?
Craig:
Oooohhhh The Iditarod Committee will not like this reporting. It might tarnish their image.
Speaking of the Iditarod. . . .in 1995 when my daughter, grandson and others (including me) hiked the Chilkoot . . . Joe Reddington hiked out ahead of us.
At the trail head, a ranger asked me to keep an eye out for an elderly gentleman hiking by himself. The ranger said the elderly hiker was Joe Reddington and Joe was celebrating his 80th birthday on the Chilkoot.
He stayed well ahead of us and apparently did not need any assistance. We never saw Mr. Reddington on the trail.
Good job reporting on the domestic violence incidents.
Kathleen (Mike) Dalton Fairbanks
Sad. For everyone.
Sent from somewhere in Alaska.
>
“Beals appears to have an anger-management problem.”….well that’s an understatement. He doesn’t need mental health treatment, she does. Beals needs to be jailed – he can see a counselor there.
Her mindset in living with this POS sure does explain why she didn’t want her Iditarod assault reported. If she doesn’t wake up, she will be a dead statistic.