What happened to Sonya Ivanoff and where was she found? Disappearance explored ahead of NBC Dateline episode

An all-new two-hour Dateline episode, scheduled to air this Friday, will revisit the 2003 mysterious disappearance and murder of Sonya Ivanoff, a 19-year-old Alaskan native. The episode, titled A Walk in the Rain, will air on October 14, 2022, at 9 pm ET on NBC.

Ivanoff was reportedly attacked by a patrolling officer named Matthew Owens on the night of August 10, 2003, while walking back alone to her Nome, Alaska, home. Two days later, her roommate filed a missing person's report, and her naked body was eventually found in a gravel pit with a gunshot wound to the head.

The case was eventually linked to police negligence and a serial attacker from the very same small-town police department who preyed on multiple women, sexually assaulting and threatening them while on patrol. In the end, it took the murder of a 19-year-old ambitious woman to expose the attacker in front of the world.

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Sonya Ivanoff failed to return home after a nightout with friends

Sonya Ivanoff moved to Nome about a year before the tragic incident occurred for work and to save up money to attend school in Hawaii that fall. She was a well-known face in the community as a star basketball player. Eric Burroughs, a former Alaska state trooper, reportedly said,

"Sonya was very prominent in the community. She was very well known in the [surrounding communities] as a good basketball player. She was known and liked."

On the night of August 10, 2003, she left home along with her roommate and a few friends for a night out but failed to return home for the next two days, which got her roommate extremely concerned about her whereabouts and well-being.

Ivanoff's roommate filed a missing person's report on August 12, claiming that she was last seen during the night out with friends. However, the 19-year-old left to go home around 1 am in the morning. She said she was feeling a little under the weather and decided to walk back home, but never made it back to their house.

Authorities searched her home and discovered that all of her belongings were still there. Following this, a search and rescue team began investigating her mysterious disappearance and eventually found her naked body in a gravel pit, with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.

Police started searching for potential suspects behind the murder and zeroed in on a boy who the victim reportedly used to date. However, they had no concrete proof against him, and he was quickly declared innocent.

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Witnesses saw Sonya Ivanoff climb aboard a police patrolling car on the night she disappeared

While investigating Sonya Ivanoff's murder case, authorities received an unsettling tip from an eyewitness who claimed to have seen the victim on the street on the night of her disappearance. A woman named Florence Habros became a key eye witness in the case when she reported seeing Ivanoff walking alone on the street the night of her disappearance.

Standing on the porch of their mother's home on Seppala Drive, Habros and her sister Dannite noticed a young woman walking alone at around 1:30 am that night. The sister spotted Sonya Ivanoff. Dannite, a sophomore athlete at Nome High School, recognized her from a basketball game in the city league.

The two reportedly waved at her as she passed within 20 feet of them and then watched her walk down the street when a registered patrolling car pulled up in front of her. Moments later, she climbed aboard the police car after having a brief conversation with the person driving. It was later revealed that officer Matthew Owens was the one driving that particular car that night.

Investigators surmised that Owens spotted Ivanoff while he was on duty and approached her for s*x based on all the evidence found. When she rejected his offer, he freaked out that she might report him and got into a fight with her and shot her dead.

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NBC Dateline airs this Friday, October 14, 2022, at 9 pm ET with Sonya Ivanoff's murder case.