A 21-year-old man suspected of killing a 75-year-old woman in Fairbanks was apprehended Sunday by U.S. border agents at Dalton Cache, the border crossing 40 miles northwest of Haines.
The suspect allegedly crashed his car into the victim’s Fairbanks home late Friday night, killed her, stole her silver 2005 Subaru Legacy wagon and drove out of town.
He bypassed the Canadian border station at Beaver Creek and headed south until the stolen vehicle broke down on Haines Highway four miles north of the Pleasant Camp/Dalton Cache border station, where he attempted to cross back into Alaska on foot, according to City of Fairbanks communications director Teal Soden.
He tried to walk along the highway through the border station but was apprehended without incident, according to Kymberly Fernandez, assistant area port director at U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Anchorage, and a Fairbanks police press release.
“We don’t get a lot of pedestrians there. He came in on foot and started walking through the port and didn’t want to stop,” Fernandez said. “He didn’t have identification and his explanations weren’t making any sense. We had to find out who he was.”
Once border agents discovered the man was wanted for murder in Fairbanks, they notified Fairbanks police, which coordinated with Haines Police to take the man into custody until detectives from Fairbanks arrived.
The suspect was held in Haines until Monday evening, when he was escorted to Juneau on an Alaska Seaplanes flight. He was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree vehicle theft.
Fairbanks police responded Saturday morning to a report around midnight Sept. 3 of a car crashing into the door of an apartment’s garage. Allegedly the victim’s death was not caused by the car crash; she was found dead in her apartment from injuries “inflicted upon her,” according to an Alaska News Source report Tuesday.
The man was arraigned Tuesday. His bail was set at $5.1 million. He remains at Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau.
How exactly the suspect evaded border agents at Beaver Creek remains unclear. “Essentially what happened is there was a big long line of cars … (and) he drove past them. He didn’t wait at the station,” Soden told the CVN.
The Canada Border Services Agency could not provide comment by press time.