Black / African American male Zaiden Young, 4, was discovered on May 13, 2015, inside his family's south Anchorage apartment after a worried relative came by around midday and called police. Officers found four people dead at the residence on the 500 block of East 74th Avenue: the 4-year-old, his 27-year-old mother Desiree Gonzalez, his 17-month-old sister Zarielle, and his 24-year-old father Curtis Young III.
The cluster of deaths immediately drew an intensive response, with investigators securing the scene and beginning interviews as neighbors absorbed the shock of a family wiped out in a single afternoon.
As detectives processed the apartment, the emerging picture pointed to domestic violence rather than an unknown assailant. Within days, Anchorage police said evidence indicated that the father, Curtis Young III, shot and killed his girlfriend and their two children before turning the gun on himself. The department described the case as a likely murder-suicide and emphasized that the scene appeared contained, a grim confirmation that the violence had unfolded entirely within the home.
No arrests were made. With the suspected perpetrator deceased, the inquiry focused on documenting what happened and why, while relatives and the broader community mourned the loss of the 4-year-old and his family. Public records and memorial notices would later list the date and place—May 13, 2015, Anchorage—and commemorate the short life of the child whose death became part of a broader conversation in Alaska about domestic violence and family murder-suicides.
