Sara Ashley Cummings, a 34-year-old female from Anchorage, was found dead before dawn on September 9, 2025, in the snow-dump area by Davis Park along 5081 Mountain View Drive. Police were dispatched around 3:18 a.m. after a nearby person reported hearing gunfire and discovering two people down outside. Responding officers secured the scene and called in the Crime Scene Team as the medical examiner worked to determine the cause of death, which police described as apparent gunshot wounds.
The following day, authorities publicly identified the two victims as Sara Cummings and 44-year-old Carl Nielsen Jr., confirming next-of-kin notifications.
Detectives interviewed witnesses at police headquarters and asked the public and nearby businesses for any surveillance footage that might show movements in and out of the park overnight. The wooded stretch near Davis Park, once the site of a large encampment cleared earlier in the year, became a focal point for canvassing as investigators tried to piece together what led the pair to that spot and who fired the shots. Police described the case as a double shooting and emphasized that tips could be submitted anonymously through Anchorage Crime Stoppers.
In the days that followed, friends and community members remembered the two people killed near the park, while police maintained that no arrests had been announced in the case. Public updates reiterated the call for information as detectives pursued leads. As of mid-September, police had not named a suspect in the Davis Park homicides; subsequent police communications about later, unrelated homicides clarified that the Davis Park investigation into the deaths of Sara Cummings and Carl Nielsen Jr. remained active.
