On the night of November 30, 2019, 30-year-old, Alaskan Native, Cecilia Tuuaga, a female from Anchorage, was killed, an act of domestic violence that unfolded with harrowing deliberateness. According to prosecutors, her husband, Tylan Lee-Kaulana Fely, shot the 30-year-old female at their home, in front of their 13-year-old daughter, Nevaeh. He then drove with Cecilia Tuuaga's body and the child in a vehicle, directing the girl by phone to purchase and fill a gas can at a station before
continuing on. The night ended in a vacant lot off the 200-block of Newell Street, where Fely shot the child and set the vehicle ablaze with both bodies inside. A passerby reported the fire around 11:12 p.m.; firefighters and police discovered the two deceased inside the SUV as it burned in the lot.
Detectives quickly focused on a single suspect. By the afternoon of December 2, 2019, Anchorage Police had identified and arrested 34-year-old Tylan Fely, describing the incident as isolated and domestic in nature. Within days, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Fely with multiple counts, including first- and second-degree murder, arson, weapons misconduct, tampering with evidence, and corpse misconduct—charges that captured the brutality and the attempted erasure of what had happened to 30-year-old female, Cecilia Tuuaga.
As the case moved through court, the official narrative retained the same grim spine: the shooting of 30-year-old female, Cecilia Tuuaga, at home; the forced, macabre drive with her body and the surviving child; the phone call instructing the purchase of gasoline; the execution of the child; and the fire meant to destroy the evidence. Years later, the case culminated in a plea. On October 29, 2024, Fely pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, an agreement that called for a 100-year sentence with no time suspended and made him ineligible for discretionary parole until he had served 55 years.
On March 7, 2025, an Anchorage Superior Court judge accepted the agreement and sentenced Fely, then 40, to that effectively life-length term for the murders of his wife, 30-year-old female, Cecilia Tuuaga, and their 13-year-old daughter. In detailing the facts at sentencing, the state again described the sequence—the shooting of Cecilia Tuuaga at home, the drive, the gas can, the second shooting, and the fire—underscoring the calculated nature of the crimes. The court emphasized isolation, seriousness of the offense, and community condemnation, and noted the profound loss borne by the family who filled the courtroom to speak about the lives that had been stolen.
Public records also note that Fely had a prior homicide conviction: manslaughter in 2008 for a 2005 killing, a shadow that prosecutors referenced as they argued the present crimes ranked among the most serious second-degree murders because the conduct met the hallmarks of first-degree murder. In the end, the justice system's conclusion was stark and final—an arrest within days, an indictment laying out the breadth of the violence, a guilty plea to spare a surviving child's testimony, and a sentence designed to ensure the person responsible for the killing of 30-year-old female, Cecilia Tuuaga, will spend the rest of his life in prison.
A memorial entry keeps the most basic record: her name, Cecilia “Celia” Tuuaga; her age, 30; the date, November 30, 2019; the city, Anchorage, Alaska; “lost to gun violence.” It is a small inscription compared to the weight of the story, but it preserves the essential truth of who she was and when she was taken.
