Kikite Leu Fatu was a a 29-year-old Hawaiian Native female whose family said she'd come north for a fresh start. On the evening of February 24, 2025, in Anchorage's Mountain View neighborhood, she was inside a friend's motorhome at Davis Park when a bullet fired from outside pierced the wall and struck her as she slept on a couch. Responding officers found her with a gunshot wound to the chest around 7 p.m.; medics took her to Providence Alaska Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead that
night. Family remembered her easy smile and the way she tried to rebuild a life far from home.
In the days after the killing, detectives gathered accounts from witnesses who described a violent confrontation outside the motorhome just before the shot that hit her. Charging documents identified a 26-year-old man as the shooter, with one witness telling police he fired toward the vehicle after grabbing and choking a woman in the melee, and that the round that tore through the wall was the one that killed the 29-year-old female inside. According to a relative, the suspect later called and apologized, saying the bullet “wasn't for her.”
A warrant went out for John Patea Jr., 26, on counts including second-degree murder, manslaughter, and third-degree assault. On March 6, 2025, officers found him on the 1700 block of Abbott Road; after he initially refused commands, they used non-lethal tactics to take him into custody. He was booked into the Anchorage Correctional Complex on the homicide warrants. Police also detailed the original scene: the shot fired into the motorhome at Davis Park, 5081 Mountain View Drive, and the 29-year-old female victim's death following transport by medics.
In public remembrances that followed, her name and age appeared beside candles and condolences, anchoring the brief span between a plan for renewal and a winter night that ended at a city park. Her family's tribute sketched a youngest sibling from a large family, doing what she wanted to do, and doing it “with a smile.”
