Man charged with murder in death of woman in Northeast Anchorage; missing boy found safe

Update, 11:30 a.m. Saturday: Eric D. Chaney Jr., 23, was remanded at the Anchorage jail on charges of first- and second-degree murder in connection with the killing of a woman found dead in a Northeast Anchorage home Friday morning, police said Saturday.

Authorities have notified the woman’s next-of-kin of her death. Anchorage police said they won’t release her identity because “this crime is domestic violence related.”

Update, 10:30 p.m. Friday: An 8-month-old boy who was reported missing earlier Friday has been found safe, Anchorage police said, and an earlier Amber Alert was canceled.

Police said in an update Friday night that Ahmiri Chaney, who had last been seen on Monday, was located safe.

Police also said that a suspect in the homicide reported earlier Friday was taken into custody. Officers said a woman was found slain in a home in Northeast Anchorage on Friday morning. Chaney had been reported missing from that same home.

Update, 6:30 p.m. Friday: Police are responding to a “barricaded suspect” in Northeast Anchorage in relation to a homicide investigation that began earlier Friday.

Anchorage police have closed More Lane at 22nd Avenue and are conducting work in the area including the use of SWAT and a crisis negotiation team, the department said in an updated alert Friday evening. Police spokeswoman Sunny Guerin confirmed via email that the suspect is connected to the homicide investigation that police described Friday morning, in which officers found a woman dead inside a home in the 6000 block of East 12th Avenue.

Police advised people to avoid the area near More Lane and 22nd Avenue and use alternate routes until law enforcement officers are done working there.

Original story:

An Amber Alert was issued Friday afternoon for an 8-month-old boy who was missing from a Northeast Anchorage home where a woman was found slain.

Anchorage police said officers were called to a residence in the 6000 block of East 12th Avenue just before 9 a.m. Friday for a report of a homicide. Officers found a woman dead with “trauma to the upper body,” the Anchorage Police Department said.

The infant boy, Ahmiri Chaney, also lives at the home and has not been found, police said. An Amber Alert was issued around 2:40 p.m. Friday for him because he is believed to be in danger.

The young boy was reported missing Friday but has not been seen since Monday, police spokeswoman Sunny Guerin said by email.

The alert lists the boy’s father — 23-year-old Eric Chaney Jr. — as a suspect. Chaney is described in the alert as a Black man with brown hair and brown eyes who is 5-foot-8 and weighs 150 pounds. According to the alert, Chaney was last seen wearing a dark ski mask, a light-colored hooded sweatshirt with a Chicago Cubs logo on the sleeve and dark pants.

Ahmiri is described as a 25-pound Alaska Native boy with brown hair and brown eyes.

The Amber Alert advised members of the public not to approach Chaney, but to call 911 or the Amber Alert hotline at 866-252-6237.

Police said anyone with information about their whereabouts or surveillance footage from the area surrounding the homicide can call dispatch at 907-786-8900 and press option 0.

The Amber Alert was published on social media and Rave, the police department’s subscription notification system, about 20 minutes before an emergency alert pinged on cellphones. Asked about what appeared to be a delayed notification to phones, police spokeswoman Guerin said the alerts are requested by the department and sent via the national Amber Alert system, then approved by cellphone carriers that send the alerts to customers.

The department “exhausts all efforts to locate the child before issuing an alert,” she said.

Limited information was immediately available about the homicide. Police spokeswoman Cherie Zajdzinski did not answer questions about the death and said in an email that the department had no further information to release.