Black/African American male, age 20, Markland William Randell Morgan left home for a Saturday evening that should have been ordinary and ended at a gym parking lot on Anchorage's East Tudor Road. Shortly after 7:20 p.m. on January 8, 2022, police were called to the Alaska Club East at 5201 E. Tudor Road after reports of shots fired. Officers arrived to find the 20-year-old deceased in the lot, the southwest corner quickly cordoned off as detectives and the crime scene team began their work
under winter night skies.
In the hours that followed, there were no arrests, only questions. Detectives pieced together witness accounts and surveillance while asking the public for tips, even as next-of-kin notifications were completed. The first official word was spare: a fatal shooting outside a neighborhood gym, a young man's life halted in a place better known for routine and repetition. Family memorials soon filled in his name, age, and the small but vital facts of a life rooted in Anchorage.
A day later, a separate call about a domestic disturbance opened the door to the answer police had been seeking. On January 9, officers investigating that disturbance identified a 21-year-old, Kawika Pacarro, as involved in the previous night's killing. They followed his vehicle south, into the Bear Valley neighborhood, where he pulled onto a dead-end at Newell Drive and Clarks Road. After a brief exchange, Pacarro took his own life. No shots were fired by officers, and with the suspect dead, the case had no arrest to book, no trial to schedule—only an investigation to understand how the two men were connected and why the shooting happened at all.
Public reporting in the days ahead echoed the department's account: the suspect's identification, the pursuit, and the sudden end that foreclosed any courtroom answers. Community posts and local coverage marked the death with the blunt fact that the person police believed responsible would never stand before a judge. The investigation into motive and association continued, but the official line remained that there had been no arrests, only a life lost and another ended before charges could be filed.
Amid the official reports and breaking updates, obituary notices anchored Markland William Randell Morgan in the city where he was born and raised, listing services and a resting place, and reminding readers that behind the police tape and press releases was a 20-year-old whose story had stretched from Anchorage schools to a January evening outside a gym. In the public record, his death is cataloged among the city's shootings; in the personal record, it is the end of a son's and friend's everyday life, interrupted by gunfire and followed by a suspect's death that left more absence than closure.
