The young man who allegedly entered a Mountain View home, killed two beloved grandparents and sexually assaulted an infant was indicted Monday for the crimes. Jerry Andrew Active was indicted on 10 felony counts in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.
The charges include two first-degree murder counts, multiple counts of sexual assault, sexually abusing a minor, as well as a single count of burglary committed during the same incident. The 24-year-old also has been charged with misdemeanor assaults for injuries he caused to the parents of the assaulted 2-year-old, according to an Alaska Department of Law press release.
If convicted of all charges, Active -- whose life began in Togiak, a Bristol Bay village of about 800 people -- faces a minimum sentence of 171 years in prison and a maximum of 616 years with a $500,000 fine, according to the press release.
The press release notes that a judge ultimately will determine Active's sentence, and the seriousness of the crimes and the defendant's criminal history will be considered. As reported by the Anchorage Police Department, Active's crimes were random and brutal. Active has been in and out of prison most of his adult life, too.
On May 25, police received an emergency call from the 400 block of North Bragaw Street in Anchorage. The caller told dispatchers a man broke into the apartment, killed her grandmother, and fled 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 suspect was captured by police soon afterwards, dressed in boxer shorts and socks, roughly a block from the scene.
The woman and her husband lived in the apartment with their two young children, her grandparents and a 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, they discovered 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.
Since the incident, media has reported Active had been released from the Anchorage Correctional Complex about 12 hours before allegedly committing the grisly murders and assaults. He served fewer than 150 days of his sentence, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Active's mother Mary Sergie told KTUU her son's battles with alcohol landed him in state custody before the age of 18. Sergie says her son told her he'd probably be released from the Anchorage jail directly into a halfway house a weekend before the allegedly random crimes. Sergie believes her son struggled with alcoholism for most of his life, and the system had failed him.
Three Democratic legislators have urged an investigation of the circumstances behind Active's release and questioned whether he should have served a longer sentence for an earlier assault.
Family friends and concerned residents gathered in the parking lot of Northway Mall Wednesday night to celebrate the lives of the two slain grandparents, Chea and Sreap, who more than three decades ago had escaped genocide in Cambodia that killed family members.
Contact Jerzy Shedlock at jerzy(at)alaskadispatch.com