ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A Fairbanks grand jury has indicted a woman on first-degree murder charges in the stabbing deaths of two people on separate days in 2017.
Lindsey Preshaw, 36, is charged in the death of 57-year-old Jeanette Miller, who died of stab wounds Nov. 27 at a motel in south Fairbanks.
Preshaw also is charged with killing her stepbrother, 43-year-old John Preshaw III, the father of her children, a day later at a home a few doors down from the motel.
The grand jury also indicted Preshaw on an assault charge for threatening a person in what police said was a domestic violence case.
Preshaw has been in custody since Nov. 30. Prosecutors say she stabbed a woman at the woman’s home in Ester, stole her pickup and crashed the truck on the Parks Highway. She is charged with attempted murder, felony assault and vehicle theft in that case.
Preshaw was named a suspect in John Preshaw’s death but had not previously been linked to the death of Miller.
Police just before noon on Nov. 27 received a report of two women fighting at a south Fairbanks motel. Fairbanks Fire Department paramedics found Miller gravely wounded and transported her to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, where she died.
Less than 24 hours later, police responded to a home on the same block as the motel in response to a report of an unconscious man bleeding. Inside the home, they found John Preshaw dead of stab wounds.
Lindsey Preshaw in 2013 was charged with stabbing John Preshaw in the leg with a butcher knife and sentenced to 20 months in prison. After John Preshaw’s death, police identified Lindsey Preshaw as a potential witness in the case, and later, as a suspect.
Early on the night of Nov. 29, a day after John Preshaw’s death, prosecutors said Lindsey Preshaw attacked a woman in Ester, an unincorporated community on the Parks Highway about 8 miles (13 kilometers) west of Fairbanks.
The injured woman told Alaska State Troopers she arrived home and saw Preshaw walking down the exterior stairs of her home. She told Preshaw to leave.
The homeowner parked, walked toward her house and again saw Preshaw. As the homeowner turned, Preshaw stabbed her in the back, neck and face, causing life-threatening injuries, according to prosecutors.
Preshaw climbed into woman’s truck and insisted the wounded homeowner accompany her as she drove south on the Parks Highway. About 3 miles (5 kilometers) down the road, the injured woman persuaded Preshaw to let her out. A man found the injured woman and called emergency responders.
Troopers found the truck crashed in a ditch about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Ester. Just after 9 p.m., a man reported a woman acting strangely along the highway about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Nenana. Troopers said Preshaw’s clothes were stained with blood and troopers seized them as evidence.
Preshaw is represented by attorney Frank Spaulding in the Ester case.
“I don’t have any comment at this point,” he said. “I’m still in the preparation phase for the one case I’m handling. I have not been retained or appointed in any subsequent matters.”
Online court documents Friday did not list Preshaw’s attorney in the first-degree murder cases.
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