Alan Wagers, a 69-year-old male from Anchorage, Alaska, was attacked in his Rogers Park home on Cottonwood Street on January 18, 2022, after a verbal argument with his housemate, 39-year-old Johnny Brandon Lee Johnson. In the living room, Johnson retrieved a hatchet from his room and struck Wagers multiple times in the head, face, right arm, and right hand. Gravely wounded, Wagers was rushed to the hospital, where he fought to survive for forty days before succumbing to his injuries on February 27, 2022.
In the immediate aftermath, Anchorage police identified Johnson as a person of interest. Two months later, in the early hours of March 16, 2022, officers encountered a Chevy Silverado that had previously eluded them; after a brief chase through a parking lot and a foot pursuit, they arrested Johnson on an outstanding felony warrant, additionally booking him for eluding, criminal mischief, and third-degree assault. At that time, police publicly noted his status as a person of interest in the January homicide.
As investigators and prosecutors assembled the case, a grand jury on May 27, 2022, indicted Johnson on one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, and one count of tampering with physical evidence in the killing of 69-year-old Alan Wagers. Johnson, who had been on parole for a prior first-degree assault from 2006 that seriously injured three people, was held without bail.
The case went to trial in Anchorage Superior Court before Judge Catherine Easter. On August 11, 2023, a jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, and tampering with physical evidence. Trial evidence established that Johnson and Wagers lived together at 2642 Cottonwood Street and that the hatchet attack followed an argument over another person being present at the residence. The state detailed how Wagers' injuries proved fatal despite weeks of hospitalization.
On January 19, 2024, Judge Easter sentenced 40-year-old Johnson to 99 years in prison, finding him a “worst offender,” citing his lengthy and primarily assaultive criminal history, and concluding his prospects for rehabilitation were poor. The court merged the second-degree murder counts into the first-degree conviction and set parole eligibility only after 66 years, effectively condemning Johnson to spend the remainder of his life incarcerated for the murder of 69-year-old male Alan Wagers.
