Black/African American male Michael Miquann Mitchell, age 22, was found on the morning of August 22, 2016, lying in the middle of Campbell Airstrip Road at Mile 3 on Anchorage's east side. A caller reported the body at 8:29 a.m., prompting a shutdown of the narrow mountain access road while crime-scene technicians worked the stretch that leads into the Stuckagain Heights neighborhood. Officers identified him publicly the next day as Michael Miquann Mitchell, age 22, and opened a homicide case.
In the weeks that followed, investigators assembled a picture of a killing carried out by gunfire on that isolated road. Reporting at the time noted that the 22-year-old had been shot multiple times in the head and torso, details that underscored the violence of the attack and the urgency behind the search for those responsible.
The investigation quickly moved toward suspects. On September 8, 2016, a grand jury returned an indictment and a warrant was issued for 19-year-old Riek William Gat on counts of first- and second-degree murder connected to the killing. Days later, the Anchorage Police Department publicly appealed for information on Gat's whereabouts while emphasizing the ongoing nature of the case involving the 22-year-old victim.
A second man, 18-year-old Kutay Bangout, was also charged with first- and second-degree murder in the same case, and by mid-September he was already in custody in Alaska on an unrelated theft arrest while the murder charges progressed. The dual charging of both men marked a decisive moment in the probe, signaling that detectives believed the fatal shooting of the 22-year-old was not the work of a lone assailant.
The manhunt for Gat ended on September 16, 2016, when U.S. Marshals tracked him to West Virginia and took him into custody following a traffic stop in Morgantown. Authorities described the interstate arrest as the culmination of tips and coordination across jurisdictions, after which Gat was held as a fugitive pending extradition to Alaska to face the murder counts stemming from the 22-year-old's death. The Anchorage Police Department confirmed the out-of-state capture the same day.
In official updates, police reiterated the core facts: a 22-year-old male victim, found on a remote road on August 22, 2016; a homicide investigation that swiftly identified suspects; and the subsequent arrests and custody statuses that followed as prosecutors pursued first- and second-degree murder charges against both named defendants. Those developments offered the clearest narrative arc in a case that began on a quiet mountain road and soon stretched across state lines.
