Anchorage

Police release grim details on Saturday's double homicide in Anchorage

Update (3:14 p.m.): The Anchorage Police Department has identified the man charged in the case detailed below. The following report has been updated to reflect the new information.

Anchorage Police released details regarding a double homicide reported Saturday evening after a couple returned home to find a naked man in their home and their grandparents dead.

On Saturday at approximately 8 p.m. Anchorage Police received a 911 call from the 400 block of North Bragaw Street in Anchorage. The caller told dispatchers that a man had broken into the apartment and had killed her grandmother, and was fleeing the scene.

Touch Chea, 73, and his wife, Sorn Sreap, 71, were found dead in the apartment, both showing signs of trauma from blunt force. Sreap had been sexually assaulted.

The man was captured by police soon afterwards, dressed in boxer shorts and socks, at the area of 329 Irwin Street, roughly a block from the scene.

The woman and her husband, both in their 20's, lived in the apartment with their two young children, her grandparents and 90-year-old great grandmother. They had gone out to a movie with their 4-year-old son and left the 2-year-old girl in the care of their grandparents. Upon returning home, the door was locked from inside. They forced their way through a window and discovered the bodies of the woman's grandparents.

They then discovered an Alaska Native man, later identified as 24-year-old Jerry Andrew Active, naked in a bedroom with their 2-year-old daughter. "A confrontation ensued between the three ending in the man slipping into a pair of boxer shorts and running away," according to an email sent by APD spokesperson Anita Shell.

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The man was captured soon after, and refused to identify himself to police; he is being held at the Anchorage Jail, without bail, charged with two counts of Murder 1, two counts of Murder 2, Sexual Assault 1, Sexual Assault of a Minor 1, and Burglary.

The 2-year-old was taken to Alaska CARES for a forensic physical examination, and it was discovered that she had also been physically assaulted. She was taken to a hospital where she underwent surgery for her injuries.

The name of the couple and their daughter are not being released out of respect for privacy of the family, Shell wrote in Sunday's email.

Corrections: Anchorage Police Department spokesperson Anita Shell reported that a misspelling of one of the victims' names was inadvertently disseminated in the official release. Charging documents also incorrectly listed the female victim as Touch Chea. Chea is the male victim, and Sorn Sreap is the female victim. Also, Sreap was the victim of sexual assault, not Chea as was originally reported in charging documents. All three errors have been corrected above.

Contact Laurel Andrews at laurel(at)alaskadispatch.com

Laurel Andrews

Laurel Andrews was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in October 2018.

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