Injuries from a moose collision and foul play have both been ruled out in the strange death of 50-year-old Connie Segevan, an Anchorage woman sadly involved in one of the oddest news stories of the year.
As originally reported in the Anchorage Dispatch News on Aug. 5, the story started like this:
“An Anchorage woman was found dead in a car early Thursday after a collision with a cow moose on the Richardson Highway near Delta Junction, troopers said.”
And ended like this:
“It wasn’t clear Friday whether Segevan’s death had any connection with the collision.”
Inbetween, the story outlined a collision 27 miles south of Delta Junction between a moose and a 1997 Honda Civic driven by 56-year-old Robert Testa, a one time Anchorage cab driver. Sevegan and Michael Kiley, 55, were passengers in Testa’s car.
“The (trooper) report indicated only minor injuries and that the driver would continue into Delta Junction,” the story continued. “Medics met the Civic in Delta Junction.
“‘Kiley was found to have minor injuries and Connie was deceased,’ troopers wrote.”
What she died of remains a mystery at this writing, according to trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters, but two obvious causes have been ruled out.
“This is not a homicide investigation,” she reported Thursday. “The (trooper) seregeant I talked to did say that the state medical examiner told him there were no signs of foul play or trauma that would have resulted in death.”
Lack of trauma also rules out the death being related to a collision. Peters said troopers are now awaiting a toxicology results and a full autopsy to see if that offers any explanation.
The case, she admitted, is a strange one.
Segevan was originally from the Point Barrow area on the far western edge of Alaska’s North Slope. The Segevan name is quite well known there. The family has a long, rich history in the north. A 1906 report from the Bureau of Education indicated “Segevan” then owned the fifth largest reindeer herd in the area at a time when owning a reindeer herd meant much.
Categories: News, Outdoors, Uncategorized
