Man arrested after discovery of body in Anchorage business

Update, 1:25 p.m. Sept. 13: Anchorage police on Wednesday identified the victim as 65-year-old Gregory Gill.

Update, 3:30 p.m. Sept. 12: Anchorage police early Tuesday identified Randall Igou, 27, as a person of interest in the discovery of a body in a Midtown business on Monday morning. Later on Tuesday, police said they were treating the death as a homicide.

Igou faces multiple charges including vehicle theft. He is the suspect in the stolen vehicle investigation and is a person of interest in the homicide investigation, police said.

Original story: A man was taken into custody at Cheney Lake Park in connection with the discovery of a body in a Midtown business Monday morning, the Anchorage Police Department said.

On Monday morning at 8:50 a.m., an employee at Aurora Paint Co. arrived at work to find a man lying on the floor, said police spokesman MJ Thim. When officers arrived, they pronounced him dead at the scene. Thim would not confirm whether the death is being treated as a homicide and said investigators are still trying to determine how the victim died.

The company opens at 7:30 a.m., and Thim said the employee had arrived to find the lights on and doors unlocked. Thim said nobody else was believed to be in the building when the employee arrived.

Thim said police are still working to figure out the victim's identity and what connection he had to the business.

Around 10:20 a.m., police put out an alert asking for help in finding a 2006 white Kia Optima believed to have been at the business and which was being investigated as a stolen car.

At 11:46 a.m., police got a tip that the car was at the intersection of Muldoon Road and Island Drive in East Anchorage.

Once officers arrived, the man in the car "definitely knew we were there and took off," Thim said.

The man ditched the car at the 2400 block of Fox Hall Drive. He took off running toward Cheney Lake, Thim said.

"We followed the suspect on foot, got down to the edge of Cheney Lake and he kept going, went into the water, went in waist-deep, neck-deep," Thim said.

Anchorage resident Allen Gregory told Alaska Dispatch News that he was fishing at Cheney Lake when the man came walking out of the woods. As soon as the man saw police behind him, he began to run, Gregory said.

Gregory said the man jumped into the lake. Police had their guns drawn and ordered the man to get out.

"He had a bag, too, that he was carrying and he dropped that in the water," Gregory said.

Thinking that the man would need to be rescued, police called the Anchorage Fire Department. But by the time firefighters arrived, the man had been taken into custody.

The man was being questioned Monday afternoon, Thim said, and was considered a suspect in the stolen car investigation. He was considered a person of interest in the death investigation, and had not been arrested, Thim said.

Thim asked everyone to avoid Cheney Lake Park as they search for evidence. Police were also on scene at Fox Hall Drive, where the car was left behind, and at Aurora Paint Co., Thim said.

Thim thanked the caller who led police to the car they were seeking. "Had we not gotten that call … we would not have had this big break in the case."

Anyone with information, including surveillance video, is asked to call 911 or police dispatch at 907-786-8900.