Stogsdill was also unwilling to dismiss Dean Moon because, after persistent rumors about drugs, someone finally came forward and implicated him in the sale and delivery of illegal substances. If the informant was correct, Dean Moon was “heavy into drugs.” The kinds of drugs he was “into” could have turned him into a killer.
According to the informant, who’d contacted Sergeant Miller in April of ’83, Moon had “ripped someone off for between $20,000 and $30,000 in cocaine money.” He was also accused of stealing a half-acre of marijuana from a drug dealer in 1980 or 1981. And Moon was allegedly capable of putting any kind of drug deal together — one informant said Moon could get cocaine, speed, PCP and psilocybin mushrooms. Not only that, but Moon was supposed to have made regular drug runs between California and Vancouver, B.C., Canada, which made him something of an international figure.
Blaine Borderite Yearbook, 1981
On the other side of the coin, however, was Stogsdill’s interview of Harlan Dean at the end of April, during which he began to have serious doubts that the man had spotted Dean Moon alive. And then there were the denials from Dean’s family and friends concerning the drug allegations. According to his friends, Dean had never participated in anything more than casual marijuana use and drinking. Equally hard to reconcile with the image of Dean Moon the “international drug dealer” was his standing as a former Blaine High School football star. His nickname was “the Champion.”
Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale. That manuscript, started in 1992 and based on court records from the Alaska State Archive, served as the basis for “What Happened in Craig.”
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2019). All rights reserved.
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