White/Caucasian male James “Jimmy” Gojdics, 69, was shot on the afternoon of May 3, 2015, at his home along the Old Elliott Highway in Fox, just north of Fairbanks. Troopers arrived to find the 69-year-old outdoorsman suffering from gunshot wounds; he was taken to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead. Early reports framed the case as a homicide investigation into the killing of the 69-year-old man best known to TV audiences for “Ultimate Survival Alaska.”
In the weeks that followed, a portrait emerged of a tense property dispute that had been simmering next door. A tenant across the creek rented from the 69-year-old man, and her new boyfriend—Major Scott Workman—had grown wary of the landlord's presence. On the day of the shooting, the couple learned that the 69-year-old landlord had pepper-sprayed the tenant's dog while it was chained outside, prompting them to move belongings and return to the property. By Workman's account, an encounter near the cabins escalated by the creek; he later told authorities he believed he was about to be shot. Responders found the 69-year-old man dead with multiple gunshot wounds across the creek.
Workman turned himself in to Alaska State Troopers later that day, and a grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder in the death of the 69-year-old landlord. Prosecutors pursued the case; the defense argued self-defense; and jurors were instructed on lesser-included offenses. After trial, the jury acquitted Workman of first- and second-degree murder but convicted him of manslaughter for the killing of the 69-year-old man.
On appeal, Workman challenged the jury instructions tied to self-defense, but in an October 20, 2021 memorandum opinion, the Alaska Court of Appeals affirmed the manslaughter conviction, leaving intact the judgment arising from the shooting death of the 69-year-old Fairbanks man.
