Overview

Last Seen: January 1, 2016
Location: Linda’s home on Morningside Loop in south Anchorage, Alaska
Age: 32
Classification: Endangered Missing / suspicious disappearance
NamUs: MP55767
Investigating Agency: Anchorage Police Department
Remains Recovered: No

Main circumstances: Linda disappeared during the early hours of New Year’s Day. Her husband initially told police she left their home on foot after an argument. Investigators subsequently found evidence they considered suspicious inside the residence and vehicle. Thomas was charged with murder and evidence tampering, but a jury acquitted him of every charge in March 2019. Linda remains missing.

Detailed Case Breakdown

Linda Louise Skeek: The 2016 Anchorage Disappearance That Remains Unresolved

Linda Louise Skeek was 32 years old when she disappeared from Anchorage, Alaska, on New Year’s Day 2016. What began as a missing-person investigation quickly became a suspected homicide case, leading to the arrest and prosecution of her husband, Thomas Skeek Jr.

Linda’s remains have never been recovered. Thomas Skeek was ultimately acquitted of all charges in 2019, leaving the central question that has followed the case for more than a decade unanswered: What happened to Linda Skeek?

Very Brief Case Summary

Last Seen: January 1, 2016
Location: Linda’s home on Morningside Loop in south Anchorage, Alaska
Age: 32
Classification: Endangered Missing / suspicious disappearance
NamUs: MP55767
Investigating Agency: Anchorage Police Department
Remains Recovered: No

Main circumstances: Linda disappeared during the early hours of New Year’s Day. Her husband initially told police she left their home on foot after an argument. Investigators subsequently found evidence they considered suspicious inside the residence and vehicle. Thomas was charged with murder and evidence tampering, but a jury acquitted him of every charge in March 2019. Linda remains missing.

Who Was Linda Louise Skeek?

Linda Louise Skeek, whose maiden name was Sheldon, was born February 20, 1983. She was an Alaska Native woman and a member of the Tlingit tribe. She had three children and was working for NANA Regional Corporation when she disappeared.

Linda had moved from Juneau to Anchorage with her husband less than a year before her disappearance. Family members described a complicated period in Linda’s marriage during the months preceding January 2016.

In November 2015, Linda sought a protective order for herself and two of her children against Thomas. According to reporting on court records, she alleged that he had grabbed and pushed her and left bruises. Linda withdrew the petition approximately ten days later, and the couple reconciled.

The relationship remained troubled, however, and Linda reportedly told people close to her that she wanted a divorce.

New Year’s Eve and Linda’s Disappearance

Linda spent New Year’s Eve 2015 with Thomas and their children in Anchorage.

Accounts presented during the investigation and later court proceedings indicate the family went downtown to see New Year’s Eve fireworks. Linda communicated with family members and posted photographs on Facebook during the evening.

Later, Thomas said he drove Linda to several Anchorage drinking establishments while he waited outside with their children.

By the early hours of January 1, Linda was back at the family’s home on Morningside Loop.

A neighbor later testified that she heard Linda and Thomas arguing. According to that testimony, Linda said she wanted a divorce. The argument reportedly escalated into sounds of objects being thrown or broken, followed by a particularly loud impact.

The neighbor testified that afterward, she did not hear Linda again.

Thomas gave authorities a different explanation for Linda’s disappearance. He said Linda walked away from their residence following an argument.

She has never been seen or heard from again.

Linda Is Reported Missing

Thomas contacted Anchorage Police on January 4, 2016, after Linda failed to return home and did not report for work.

The circumstances immediately concerned Linda’s family.

Although relatives said Linda had occasionally stayed away for an entire weekend, she normally returned by Sunday evening so she could go to work Monday morning. Her continued absence was considered highly unusual.

Anchorage Police publicly asked for assistance locating Linda on January 7.

At the time, she was described as approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and 200 pounds, with brown eyes and dark hair. Police said she was believed to have been wearing a black coat, red vest and red skirt when she disappeared.

Police Begin Treating the Disappearance as Suspicious

As investigators gathered information, the case changed significantly.

By January 15, Anchorage Police announced that information obtained during the investigation had caused detectives to consider Linda’s disappearance suspicious.

Investigators examined records, interviewed witnesses and eventually obtained search warrants for the Skeeks’ home and a vehicle.

The searches were carried out on January 20.

According to information later made public, investigators located blood evidence in several locations in the residence, including areas of the bathroom, kitchen and basement crawl space. Blood evidence was also reportedly located in the couple’s vehicle.

Investigators also reported finding long dark hair in the crawl space.

Police additionally examined Linda’s financial and electronic activity. Investigators alleged that records had been deleted from a family phone and found unusual activity involving Linda’s bank account after she disappeared.

Authorities also documented injuries on Thomas following Linda’s disappearance, including scratches, bruising and what investigators believed could have been a human bite mark.

Prosecutors would eventually argue that these pieces of evidence were part of an attempted cleanup following Linda’s death.

Thomas Skeek Is Charged With Murder

Immediately after the January 20 searches, Anchorage Police arrested Thomas Skeek.

He was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with Linda’s disappearance.

The prosecution proceeded despite one major obstacle:

Linda’s body had never been found.

The case therefore became what is commonly called a “no-body” homicide prosecution. Prosecutors would have to convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt both that Linda was dead and that Thomas was responsible for her death without being able to present her remains.

Meanwhile, Linda’s family continued searching.

Relatives organized searches around Anchorage in hopes of recovering her body and bringing her home.

The Murder Trial

Thomas Skeek’s trial began in Anchorage in February 2019, more than three years after Linda disappeared.

Prosecutors argued that Thomas killed Linda at the Morningside Loop residence during the early hours of January 1, 2016, and subsequently disposed of her body.

They presented the blood evidence, witness testimony and other circumstantial evidence that investigators had collected.

One of the prosecution witnesses was Linda and Thomas’s daughter.

The prosecution also presented the neighbor’s account of hearing the couple arguing, Linda discussing divorce, a loud impact and then silence.

The defense challenged the state’s interpretation of virtually every major piece of evidence.

Defense attorneys emphasized that investigators had never found Linda’s body and argued that prosecutors could not conclusively establish that Linda was dead.

Even if Linda had died, the defense argued, the evidence did not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas killed her.

Alternative possibilities were presented, including that Linda could have encountered someone after leaving the house, been struck by a vehicle or intentionally disappeared.

Thomas Skeek Is Acquitted

In March 2019, the case went to the jury.

After deliberations, jurors found Thomas Skeek not guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and evidence tampering.

The acquittal ended the criminal prosecution against him.

It did not solve Linda’s disappearance.

No court determined what ultimately happened to Linda, and her remains were not recovered.

The Search for Linda Continues

Linda’s family has continued publicly advocating for answers.

Her disappearance has also become part of the wider discussion surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in Alaska.

In 2020, relatives carried Linda’s photograph during a Women’s March in Juneau while calling attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Victims for Justice later produced Looking for Linda: Alaska and the Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, featuring Linda’s mother, aunt and stepfather. The project examined both Linda’s disappearance and the broader MMIP crisis in Alaska.

Linda’s family again publicly raised her name during a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day event in Juneau in May 2024.

Family member Jeni Brown said the family would not stop until Linda Sheldon was found and explained the cultural importance of recovering Linda so that her family could provide her with a proper final resting place.

Latest Investigation Information

Linda remains listed in Alaska’s missing-person records. Recent Alaska Missing Persons Clearinghouse/MMIP data continues to list Linda Skeek, Anchorage, date of last contact January 1, 2016, with the circumstances classified as “Suspicious.”

Her remains have not been publicly reported as recovered.

No subsequent conviction has resolved her disappearance following Thomas Skeek’s 2019 acquittal, and publicly available records do not identify another person who has been charged with causing Linda’s disappearance or presumed death.

Her NamUs identification number is MP55767, and Anchorage Police Department remains the investigating agency.

For Linda’s family, the objective remains the same as it was in 2016: finding Linda and learning what happened to her.

Until that happens, the disappearance of Linda Louise Skeek remains unresolved.