After a Fairbanks man was convicted this week in the 2017 murder of his girlfriend, Robyn Gray, her family and Alaska Native community members described their relief and their sense that justice had been served.
Roberto Leal Jr., 42, was found guilty Wednesday of second-degree murder and now faces a sentence of 15 to 99 years in prison, according to state prosecutors. Leal was arrested and charged in 2017 after police found 28-year-old Gray dead in their Fairbanks home. Leal, who was accused of strangling her to death, is now awaiting sentencing in a hearing scheduled for June.
“We’re all so happy with the outcome,” Gray’s cousin Antonia Commack said. “We all cried from joy all day.”
Gray was born in Kotzebue, spent her childhood in Fairbanks and Selawik and moved to Anchorage after high school, maintaining her ties to Northwest Alaska through family and friends, Commack said.
About a year before her death, Gray moved back to Fairbanks, where she lived with Leal and their two children. Commack said Gray suffered physical abuse from Leal earlier in their relationship and even earlier the day she died.
While Gray’s family, friends and Native community members waited for the court’s decision, Commack said she reached out to the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center to spread word about the case. The center and the Tanana Chiefs Conference organized a vigil in front of the courthouse in Fairbanks, about an hour after the verdict came.
“A bunch of people showed up, so that was really great,” Commack said.
More than 20 people attended Wednesday’s vigil, according to Janelle Chapin, the center’s program specialist manager who participated in the event.
“People were very relieved, very happy to have some closure for her family,” Chapin said.
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Vigil participants held candles and signs that called for justice for Gray, Chapin said. After an opening prayer, Gray’s family thanked the community for helping them get through challenging times.
“Many people dropped by waving and honking at her family to show support,” she added.
Chapin said that Gray’s case is the second trial in two weeks where a guilty verdict was delivered in the murder of an Alaska Native woman. Earlier this month, Maine resident Steven Downs was found guilty of murder and sexual assault in the 1993 killing of 20-year-old Sophie Sergie, who was found dead on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.
“It’s very helpful in bringing closure to families and to our community,” Chapin said. “We don’t often get closure and justice for our missing and murdered women.”
Brittany Madros, TCC’s tribal government and justice division director, said that the vigil was important for Alaska Native community members to come together, express support for women facing violence and “recognize that although we’ve lost a beautiful woman in our community, and it wasn’t right or fair, that at least she was able to get her own justice.”
“With the high rates that we face in Alaska of violence against Native women, and often no justice being served, this was a moment that could be celebrated,” Madros said. “Although it’s an extremely hard time and there’s a lot of heartbreak and loss for the family, it was also a moment that Robin Gray got justice, her family got justice, and the whole Native women community got justice.”