On the night of January 31, 2017, Alaskan Native, Michael “Big Mike” Chris—male, age 32, stepped out of his Bethel home after telling his wife he was going to smoke a cigarette. A single gunshot cracked the winter air. His wife ran downstairs, the porch light burning, his truck door ajar, and found him on the ground outside. In the hours that followed, police described the death as a possible self-inflicted gunshot with no suspected foul play, and his body was sent to the State Medical Examiner in Anchorage. At the time, Michael was a City of Bethel utility maintenance worker; he was remembered as a steady hand, a father, and the person people called when their pipes froze.
In the days and months after, the family pushed back against the early suicide framing. Michael's mother and wife said the photos from his funeral showed bruising they did not recognize, and they described a household suddenly shadowed by dread: phone calls Michael wouldn't answer, the look of someone being squeezed by unseen pressure. By February 2017, the family publicly argued that he had been killed amid a drug dispute; they said he had struggled with heroin after a back injury and had been receiving threats. Police told reporters the investigation was ongoing.
A year later, detectives had reclassified the case as a homicide and said they suspected it was drug-related, a shift that hardened the family's belief that Michael had not died by his own hand. The Bethel Police Department acknowledged that silence in the community—possibly tied to drugs and fear—was stalling progress. Michael's relatives offered a $25,000 reward, but police said it “didn't bring one single call” into the department. The family gathered for a quiet memorial, cooked for days, and kept visiting the grave, praying for justice while detectives said they were still following leads.
Public reporting does not document any arrests. Police have not announced charges, and authorities have not publicly named a suspect; references to threats and a possible connection to local drug activity come through the family's statements and the police department's description of the case as a homicide with suspected drug ties. As of the most recent coverage, Michael Chris's killing remains unsolved.
