Kendall Rae

Timmery was so desperate for any information that she even called the Nome Police Department to see if Sonia had been arrested, but she hadn't been.

And soon, it seemed that everyone was coming up empty.

So on August 12th, Timmery went to the Nome Police Department to fill out a missing persons report.

And according to her, and unfortunately we hear this more times than we don't, it seems, but

They did not take it very seriously and seemed to just kind of brush the whole situation off.

Even Sonia's brother-in-law ended up going to the department that evening, and he said he had the same experience.

But the next day, Sonia missed another shift without calling in.

So her employer also reported her missing, and that seemed to get the police's attention a little bit more.

So they, at that point, jumped right into action.

Now, the Nome Police Department is incredibly small, with only eight officers.

So they requested help from the fire department and volunteers to search for Sonia, but they weren't out very long.

At around 8.30 that evening, a volunteer firefighter was about three miles outside of Nome when he saw tire tracks going down a remote road.

and he followed them.

And that is when he came across the body of Sonia Ivanov, who was dead at just 19 years old.

And the crime scene was rather strange.

Sonia's body was hidden under some bushes, and she was completely naked, except for one sock on her left foot.

While she had bruises on her face and chest, the cause of death wasn't immediately obvious.

So the Nome Police Department went ahead and called in the Alaska Bureau of Investigation to help process this scene.

But here's the thing.

The ABI's headquarters are in Anchorage, which is about 500 miles away from Nome.