MINOT, N.D. (KMOT) – The case of the 2007 killing of Minot college student Anita Knutson was featured on a two-hour episode of Dateline Friday night.
Knutson’s roommate Nichole Rice was acquitted of murder in a March trial in Grand Forks.
KMOT’s Joe Skurzewski has closely followed the case for years, and spoke with Dateline correspondent Blayne Alexander on what she learned about the case, and how it’s impacted people across North Dakota and the country.
Dateline correspondent Blayne Alexander said one of the big things that stuck out to her in covering this case was learning the impact Anita had on the people around her.
“To talk to all of her friends all of her people who knew her, the fact that she was able to come in, get acclimated, and then just become this radiant light in the community that quickly, really spoke to I think who she was,” said Alexander.
She said the nature the case allows it to resonate with many, not just those who knew her.“
College. It’s something that a lot of us can relate to, kind of living in one of your first apartments off campus, and then something like this happens. So I certainly it felt for her, for her family, but also just the greater Minot community of thinking, wow, college student living off campus, and then there’s this violent crime, how terrifying that must be,” said Alexander.
I asked Alexander about the challenges prosecutors faced in bringing this case before a jury. She pointed to the circumstantial nature.
“The fact that they weren’t able to lift any sort of DNA information, any sort of any sort of forensic information, from that knife to kind of point them in the direction of the killer, that’s something that’s very difficult,” said Alexander.
She also noted how closely so many people followed the case.
“Knowing how much the story stuck with people, really stuck with me, the fact that there are still ribbons up in some places around her hometown. So I think the takeaway is crime doesn’t just happen to one person, it happens to a community, it happens to a village it happens to so many people around,” said Alexander.
Alexander said they’ll be keeping in touch with the people they interviewed for Dateline.
Some former classmates of Anita’s as well as her brother Daniel started a scholarship foundation in their honor, through the Velva Dollars for Scholars program.
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