Larry Demmert, Jr., the Libby 8 skipper, added other details to the picture. He told troopers he’d noticed the Investor’s skiff tied up to the cold storage dock — on the morning before the fire. The skipper also revealed that John Peel and Dawn Holmstrom were good friends with both Dean Moon and Jerome Keown — not just John Peel, as Brian Polinkus had insisted. He said he had seen the lot of them onboard the Libby 8 the Sunday before the fire; they were drinking beer on the 8’s deck.
At ten or ten-thirty that evening, moreover, Demmert said he returned from town and saw people partying on board the Investor. He said he didn’t know who was partying, thought John Peel might have been over there, but added that Peel preferred to hang out in the Hill Bar.
“O.K. When you came to your boat around ten or eleven,” Flothe asked the skipper, “who was on board your boat at that time?
”Nobody,” Demmert replied. “Just me.”
By the time Flothe and Stogsdill were finished with Larry Demmert, Jr., they had a funny feeling about John Peel. Demmert told them Peel had a girlfriend in town — and a wife in Bellingham. They learned Peel was a partier — and that there was a party on the Investor the night of the murders. And they confirmed, beyond any doubt, that two members of the Investor crew not only knew John Peel, but were with him that Sunday. Had been with him and were drinking.
More crucial, Larry Demmert insisted he was the only person on board the Libby 8 the night before the murders. John Peel told them something else. John Peel told them that he too was on board that Libby 8 that night. That he’d come home early and gone to sleep. Either Larry Demmert was mistaken — or John Peel was lying.
Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale.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.
Order “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE. True crime from Epicenter Press about Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder.
What ever happened to the skipper of the Libby 8 from the 90’s? This boat seems to be shrouded with controversy. Does this boat still exist?
Larry Demmert, Jr., the Libby 8 skipper. moved on to other endeavors in the fishing community. Not sure about the vessel. It was pretty old even back in the 80’s.