Gregg S. Niwa, a 57-year-old male, spent the late hours of May 8, 2017 at his home on South Salem Drive in Anchorage. Inside that quiet residence, an argument flared between Niwa and a 32-year-old acquaintance, Mary Rose Carter. Police later said both had been drinking. In the heat of that confrontation, Carter shot Niwa and then stabbed him several times in the torso before fleeing into the night.
The house fell silent again, and it stayed that way until the following afternoon, when Niwa's roommate returned and found him dead.
Detectives traced the final hours quickly. On May 10, 2017, just after 1:30 p.m., officers located Carter and brought her in for questioning. By that evening she was under arrest, charged with Murder in the First Degree and Murder in the Second Degree for the killing of Gregg S. Niwa. The police account describes a simple, tragic sequence: a domestic argument, alcohol, a gunshot, a knife, and a suspect who ran instead of calling for help.
The official timeline fixed the violence on May 8 and the discovery on May 9, details later echoed in obituary notices that listed Niwa's death in Anchorage that week. The case file reads like so many others in a grim ledger of 2017 homicides, but its contours remain stark: a man in his own home, a fatal dispute, and an arrest that followed within two days.
