By SUZANNE DOWNING
A Wasilla man indicted last week for the murder of an Anchorage teenager had previously been released from juvenile custody after killing his own mother and brother as a teen, and was highlighted by the Alaska Native Justice Center as a success story out of the restorative justice program that helped him reenter society.
The case raises questions about whether Alaska’s rehabilitative approach to violent juvenile offenders protects the public.
A Palmer grand jury on March 5 indicted 22-year-old Ian Millard on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and tampering with physical evidence in the 2023 death of 18-year-old Ataja Banks of Anchorage.
Millard, who had been walking free since that death, was arrested Friday by an Alaska State Troopers SWAT team during a traffic stop on Knik Goose Bay Road and taken to the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility.
Banks had been reported missing in November 2023. Her remains were discovered on Sept. 4, 2025, near Moose Meadows Road in Wasilla. An autopsy determined her death was a homicide.
Investigators believe Banks was killed on Sept. 25, 2023, weeks before her disappearance was formally investigated.
The case was initially handled by the Anchorage Police Department but was transferred to the Alaska Bureau of Investigation in 2024 after authorities determined Banks had last been seen alive in the Mat-Su Valley.
Little has been released publicly about how Millard and Banks knew each other or what may have led to her death. Millard made his first court appearance this weekend in Palmer Superior Court. But his history has drawn particular attention.
In February 2016, when Millard was 12 years old, he fatally shot his mother, 40-year-old Renee Millard, and his 10-year-old brother at their Meadow Lakes home. Because of his age, he was processed through Alaska’s juvenile justice system rather than the adult courts.
He was held at the McLaughlin Youth Center in Anchorage until his release at age 18 or 19, around late 2022 or early 2023.
Following his release, the Alaska Native Justice Center assisted Millard with reintegration services, including housing, obtaining a driver’s license, tuition for school, and basic household supplies.
In a November 2022 article, the organization described the effort as part of its restorative justice and reentry work and highlighted the case as a successful example of helping formerly incarcerated youth rebuild their lives. The Alaska Native Justice Center has recently scrubbed his name from their archive of success stories.
Restorative justice programs emphasize repairing harm, reintegrating offenders into the community, and addressing underlying causes of criminal behavior rather than focusing solely on punishment. It’s an imperfect system.
Alaska’s juvenile justice system reflects that philosophy, in part because of US Supreme Court rulings such as Miller v. Alabama (2012), which prohibit mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles and point to the need to consider youth and potential rehabilitation when sentencing young offenders.
The new murder charges against Millard reignites the debate about the limits and risks of those rehabilitative policies when it comes to extreme acts of violence.
Millard’s alleged killing of Banks occurred about a year after his release from juvenile custody and shortly after his reintegration assistance had begun.
Alaska Native Justice Center reports it reduces recidivism rates among many participants by focusing on employment, housing stability, and community support. But when those “success” stories fail, the group quickly removes the “success” stories from public view.
4 thoughts on “Restorative justice fail? Wasilla man accused of killing Anchorage teen had been hailed as a restorative justice ‘success story’”
It’s another story showing how ignorant and backward thinking Alaskans are. They are so illiterate and ignorant that they don’t even know Who is a victim and perpetrator. They think all victims are victims. You know what many Victins carry out abuse of the abuse they learned from someone.
On a side note it sounds like his mother was another single mother raising her boys alone, and in her own isolation raising her boys she made a whole lot of mistakes in her parenting..
I tell All single mothers You can’t raise your children alone. I don’t care what society says. As women we don’t have what a man brings into his parenting and we never will just like a dad doesn’t have what woman brings. . Unfortunately so many single mothers are alone. She either needs a good man in her life to help her raise her children (to play the father role) or she has Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior and she is all in and reading her bible, praying, and maybe attending a good church with an active youth ministry That has lots of other kids coming from various backgrounds for her kids to join and learn more about Jesus.
You know the Alaska watchman they have another recent article on anortion about the pills silently taking babies lives written by Smash. She like the other prolife people and Christians around the state they care about how many babies lives are lost and how many children are orphans but they are doing nothing in their communities to befriend, help, guide, and disciple the single mothers of Alaska when majority of those children in foster care are the children of single mothers who who temporarily or permanently lost custody of their children. Meaning they care more about children of single mothers AFTER the mother is removed. How hypocritical!! You can’t say you are pro life and care nothing about how your ministries exclude the help, guidance, discipleship that single mothers desperately need even the encouragement to just stay single despite raising a child on your own is so hard if a single mother hasn’t met a man who really wants to be a husband and dad and is willing to Kay his life down for family. While she waits the marriages and singles the churches need to draw those single mothers into their church and teach her how to be a follower of Jesus and how to have relationship with the Father who is the perfect father for helping her raise her children even heal her own heart. Because not all single mothers can have husband but she has too much brokenesd and needs Jesus Christ more than a husband. In Christ, HE’ll show a single mother when she is being too hard on her kids, when she is being over controlling, not nurturing on her child so she can see in the Word that she reads every day where she needs to change as a parent.
All the while, Thomas Jack, also an Alaska Native, rots in prison. Where are you ANJC?
I am not sure it is anyone’s job to try to fix what obviously cannot be mended. Some crimes are truly bad enough to require that the offender is never set free to harm another. Who can possibly believe that any kid who commits murder can then be a-ok once he or she turns a magical 18 years of age? That sort of idiotic lack of logic cost a young lady’s life.
Some people just can’t be fixed. And I can think of a few more in the current Administration.
BTW, it looks like MRAK no longer allows any comments. I guess the workload was too high for Ms. Spaulding. At least we can still express ourselves here. MRAK just wasn’t much fun anymore, anyways. It’s now like reading the daily report from the Alaska Legislature. Little else.