Black/African American male, age 30, Kaupoe Magalei Jr. was shot and killed in the early hours of February 27, 2022, inside Al's Alaskan Inn on the Old Seward Highway in Anchorage. Police were called just before 2 a.m., and officers arrived to find him dead at the scene. Detectives quickly learned there had been an altercation between Magalei and another man moments before the gunfire.
East 79th Avenue was cordoned off as the crime scene team worked the case and investigators canvassed for witnesses and surveillance footage, believing from the outset that the shooting was not random.
By that evening, detectives had identified a suspect and made an arrest. William Jamal Gary, 36, was taken into custody at 7:27 p.m., questioned at police headquarters, and remanded to the Anchorage jail on counts of first- and second-degree murder. Early accounts from local outlets mirrored the police narrative: a dispute inside the bar that escalated to shots fired, leaving the 30-year-old victim dead where he fell.
Within days, the case moved into the courts. On March 9, 2022, an Anchorage grand jury indicted Gary on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. He was held on $400,000 bond and scheduled for arraignment in Superior Court, with the state noting that the charges were allegations subject to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The indictment reiterated the core facts: that Gary was accused of shooting and killing the 30-year-old inside a bar on the Old Seward Highway.
Years later, records and subsequent mentions continued to identify Gary as the man charged in connection with the killing, while memorial pages marked the date Magalei died. Through it all, the early-morning setting and the suddenness of the violence remained stark: a crowded Anchorage nightspot, a brief confrontation, and the life of a 30-year-old man ended before dawn.
