Tauna Showalter, a 31-year-old Alaskan male from Unalakleet, Alaska, died on February 8, 2015. Late that Sunday night, a call first reached the Unalakleet Police Department and then Alaska State Troopers about an incident inside a local home where one person was dead and another injured. Troopers arrived to find the 31-year-old male, Tauna Showalter, dead from what investigators described as an apparent gunshot wound.
The other adult male involved had non-life-threatening injuries; he was treated at the village clinic and medevaced to Anchorage for additional care. The State Medical Examiner in Anchorage received Showalter's body for autopsy after next of kin were notified.
Investigators said the evidence indicated a physical altercation between the two adult males led up to the shooting. As of the initial reports released that week, Troopers declined to identify the second man, explaining that he was not charged with any crime and that they do not release potential suspect information while an investigation is active. Public updates described the case as ongoing, with follow-up interviews underway and no further details offered about what precipitated the fight or the firearm used. Independent tracking databases likewise recorded the death as a gunshot fatality following a fight, listing the victim as a 31-year-old male and noting one firearm involved.
No arrests were announced in the immediate aftermath, and authorities did not present a named suspect in contemporaneous public statements. The early posture of the case—one man killed, one injured, and investigators withholding the other man's identity because he had not been charged—left the small community waiting on the results of the ongoing Troopers' investigation into the cause and circumstances of the shooting.
