Update, 1:30 p.m. Tuesday: Anchorage police identified the man killed on North Lane Street on Saturday as 28-year-old Randy Ropati.
Update, 11 a.m. Monday: Anchorage police identified the woman killed on Peterkin Avenue Saturday as 38-year-old Kikono Savo.
Original story:
An Anchorage man is facing several murder charges after police arrested him Saturday and said he was connected to two fatal shootings over the weekend.
Al Leafa Jr., 26, appeared in court at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on Sunday afternoon.
Police wrote in an online statement that Leafa fatally shot a man on the 200 block of Lane Street near Russian Jack Springs Park on Saturday morning before killing a woman on the 4200 block of Peterkin Avenue less than an hour later.
“Detectives have determined that although these incidents involved the same suspect, they are isolated,” the statement said.
Officers were called to a home on Lane Street Saturday around 10:39 a.m. because a shooting had been reported inside the residence, police said. Officers found a man with gunshot wounds on his upper body and he was brought to the hospital, where police said he later died.
Police were called to a home on Peterkin Avenue at 11:28 a.m. on reports of a shooting inside the residence, according to the statement. A woman had a gunshot wound in her upper body and was brought to the hospital, where police said she later died.
The two crime scenes are just over a mile away from each other. Police said detectives identified Leafa as a suspect “based on evidence collected in a separate investigation.”
The two homicides Saturday were not believed to be tied to another shooting death Friday night near Bliss and Pine streets, police said. No charges had been filed in that homicide by Sunday.
Police had not identified any of the victims by Sunday.
Leafa is being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on a $250,000 bail. He is facing two charges of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder.
This week was punctuated by violence, as a quarter of the city’s homicides during 2020 unfolded in just three days. Anchorage has seen a drastic decrease in homicides this year compared to previous years. So far in 2020 there have been 16 homicides and two people have died after being shot by police.