Anchorage man charged with stabbing woman to death

Friday update: Anchorage police have identified the woman Simon Weyiouanna is accused of killing as 42-year-old Cheri Ingram of Anchorage.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

Original story:

A 27-year-old Anchorage man told police he stabbed a woman to death Wednesday night because he was trying to get rid of her before his girlfriend got home, court documents say.

Simon Weyiouanna was spotted by neighbors dragging the woman's body out of his apartment and was held at gunpoint until officers arrived, Anchorage police said.

Weyiouanna apparently picked up his victim in a "street transaction" in Spenard with the intention of paying for sex, according to Lt. Joshua Nolder, head of the Anchorage Police Department's homicide unit.

Weyiouanna brought the woman, whom he didn't know, to his Turnagain home on the 3000 block of Wisconsin Street, police said.

He later told detectives he "picked up a prostitute at a nearby gas station and brought her home," according to a sworn affidavit filed with charging documents Thursday. "He started having sex with her and then stabbed her multiple times."

Weyiouanna told police that "he was attempting to remove the female prior to his girlfriend coming home," Detective Ross Henikman wrote.

The woman suffered numerous stab wounds to her upper body, police said.

A resident of Weyiouanna's fourplex called 911 around 10:25 p.m. Wednesday and reported seeing him "dragging a body wrapped in bed sheets out the main entrance," the affidavit said.

Another neighbor held Weyiouanna at gunpoint until officers arrived, Nolder said.

The officers found Weyiouanna with blood on his clothing, a fresh cut on his finger, a bloody knife in his pocket, a large amount of money and a cell phone, according to the affidavit. An SUV was backed up to the main entrance with the back hatch open.

The body of the woman, wrapped in blankets, was on the ground behind the SUV. Officers made sure there weren't any other victims.

"Blood was present throughout the apartment and there was evidence that a disturbance occurred inside," he wrote. "Officers noted signs of attempted cleanup throughout the apartment."

Asked if the accusations against Weyiouanna — meeting a woman he didn't know to pay for sex and then killing her — could be part of a larger pattern of violence, Nolder said "that would certainly be a concern of ours as well. That's obviously something we'd be investigating."

Officers arrested Weyiouanna without incident and took him to jail on charges of first- and second-degree murder and evidence tampering.

He was arraigned Thursday afternoon.

Police credited the neighbor who called 911 with solving the murder. Nolder said that while the department emphasizes public safety, the neighbor who held Weyiouanna at gunpoint apparently felt it was important to keep him there.

The woman's death is the fourth homicide in Anchorage this year.