Woman pleads guilty to murder as Washington’s Indigenous cold case unit secures first conviction

A first-of-its-kind cold case investigation unit in Washington state has secured its first conviction after a woman pleaded guilty to the 2016 murder of an Indigenous artist.

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Cold Case Unit was established within the Washington attorney general’s office in 2023, according to the office’s website. The team works with law enforcement agencies to solve missing person and homicide cases involving people of Indigenous ancestry.

The cold case unit was asked to investigate the murder of George David in 2024, the attorney general’s office said in a news release. David, a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, was found dead in March 2016 at a friend’s Port Angeles apartment. David, 65, was a renowned woodcarver and lived in Washington’s Neah Bay, the attorney general’s office said.

Port Angeles police investigated the murder and designated Tina Marie Alcorn as their primary suspect, but there was not enough evidence to charge her. Alcorn was eventually extradited to Arkansas for violating probation on an unrelated felony theft conviction, according to CBS affiliate KIRO.

When the the cold case unit began looking at the case in 2024, they were able to conduct additional investigation into some of the evidence collected in 2016, the attorney general’s office said. That included additional DNA analysis.

Alcorn was arrested in June and charged with murder. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, along with a special sentencing enhancement for being armed with a deadly weapon during the crime, the attorney general’s office said on Monday. Alcorn was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison by a judge in Clallam County Superior Court.

David’s daughter Maria said in a statement that she is thankful to the attorney general’s office and the cold case unit for solving the case.

“My dad was a master carver,” she said. “There are two half-finished puppets my dad was carving, that were to be used as a means of Indian Storytelling. But that never got to happen. I just have half-finished carvings, that never got to become puppets and tell their stories. Indian artwork is a way for us to tell our stories. And his stories can no longer be told, and we will never be able to see any of my dad’s artwork again. Silver engraving, masks, totem poles, rattles, prints. It’s all silent now.”

American Indian and Alaskan Native people “experience violence at much higher rates than other populations,” the cold case unit says on its website. Homicide is the sixth-leading cause of death for Indigenous women and girls, and the third-leading cause of death for Indigenous men. In Washington, about 5% of unresolved cold case victims are Indigenous, though less than 2% of the state’s population is.