By Dave Alsup
(CNN) — Alaskan authorities say there’s no evidence to back up a 19-year-old Pennsylvania woman’s claim that one of the countless killings she carried out was in their state.
Miranda Barbour told a newspaper reporter over the weekend that she killed so many people across so many states in the last six years that she lost count. She told the Daily Item newspaper in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, that the killings spanned from Alaska to North Carolina.
However, Alaska State Troopers said Tuesday Barbour’s claims don’t bear out — at least in their state.
“At this time the Alaska State Troopers are not aware of any information — beyond Barbour’s comments quoted in the press — or evidence that would implicate Barbour with a homicide committed in Alaska,” a statement from the agency said.
The agency said it has been in contact with Pennsylvania authorities.
“We will follow up on any credible lead that is provided to us,” the statement said.
Claims invite skepticism
Barbour told the newspaper that she began killing when she was 13. She took credit for more than 22 but fewer than 100 killings, Daily Item reporter Francis Scarcella told CNN affiliate WNEP.
Authorities haven’t verified her claims, although they are investigating. Many are skeptical.
Barbour and her husband, Elytte Barbour, 22, do face murder charges in the 2013 death of 42-year-old Troy LaFerrara, who police say the couple lured with a Craigslist ad, strangled, repeatedly stabbed and dumped in a yard.
If her other claims are true, Barbour would be one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers.
Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, pleaded guilty to killing 49 women in Washington state in the 1980s and 1990s. Randy Steven Kraft may have killed as many as 65 young men in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Based on the numbers she gave Scarcella, Barbour would have had to kill on average somewhere between every three weeks and every three months. For six years. Without leaving a trace.
Yet in the 2013 killing, police documents show Barbour told police she and her husband couldn’t clean up all the blood LaFerrara’s killing left in her CR-V, and that one of the ways investigators traced the killing to her was her own cell phone. The last number dialed on LaFerrara’s phone led to Barbour, according to police.
Even the prosecutor who hopes to convict the couple, Northumberland County District Attorney Tony Rosini, said he discounts Barbour’s other claims.
“We have been in contact with other law enforcement agencies where she has lived and haven’t received any information verifying what she said,” Rosini told WNEP.
CNN’s Matt Smith and Mike Pearson contributed to this report.
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