A former Palmer teenager charged with murder in Pennsylvania claims to be a prolific serial killer who got her start in a satanic cult in Alaska.
Miranda Dean Barbour, 19, who lived in North Pole and the Mat-Su but left the state in 2011, is accused of stabbing to death a married electrical engineer in the central Pennsylvania town of Sunbury on Nov. 11.
Barbour gave a jailhouse interview Friday night to the Sunbury Daily Item newspaper in which she claimed to have killed dozens of people in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California over the past six years.
"When I hit 22, I stopped counting," Barbour told the Daily Item.
She is quoted as saying the "majority" of the killings took place in Alaska.
Barbour's defense attorney has sought a psychiatric evaluation for his client, according to news reports.
Hundreds of news outlets quickly picked up the lurid story of the self-proclaimed satanist who boasted to a reporter of spending her teenage years on a nationwide killing spree.
The big question: How seriously are authorities taking Barbour's claims?
The FBI in Philadelphia told NBC News that the agency "has recently been in contact with the Sunbury Police Department regarding Miranda Barbour, and will offer any assistance requested in the case."
Alaska law enforcement sources didn't respond on Sunday to questions about whether they've launched their own investigations into her time in Alaska.
Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said the department wouldn't be able to answer questions about Barbour until after the Presidents' Day holiday weekend.
A spokesman for the Anchorage bureau of the FBI did not immediately respond to phone messages Sunday.
Pennsylvania authorities appear to be taking the 19-year-old mother's words seriously.
Police in Pennsylvania told the Daily Item that they had been working with investigators from other states to probe possible connections to unsolved murders even before her jailhouse revelations became public this weekend.
Public records show Barbour filed for Alaska Permanent Fund dividends for years from North Pole and Anchorage addresses.
A Facebook page that appears to belong to Barbour lists North Pole as her hometown.
It says she attended Colony High School and Valley Pathways School, in Palmer.
According to Barbour's narrative to Daily Item reporter Francis Scarcella, the teenager joined a satanic cult in Alaska when she was 13 and spent her teenage years killing at the behest of a cult leader.
She reportedly moved to North Carolina from Alaska in 2011, when she was pregnant with her daughter. In North Carolina she met Elytte Barbour, now 22, the Daily Item reported. The two married in October 2013.
Police say the couple used a Craigslist ad promising "companionship" to lure LaFerrara to a mall parking lot.
After driving several miles, Miranda Barbour stabbed LaFerrara in the front seat of her car while her husband held a cord around his neck, the couple told police.
Elytte Barbour told investigators they committed the crime because they wanted to kill someone together, according to court papers.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Barbour and her husband.
Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By MICHELLE THERIAULT BOOTS