On October 26, 1996, in the Chugiak/Eagle River area just north of Anchorage, Alaska, four-year-old white male Corey Paul Ely was killed during a domestic-violence shooting that also took the lives of his sister, five-year-old Jessica Ely, and Anchorage Police Officer Dan Richard Seely. The violence unfolded around an apartment where Corey's mother, Christina Ely, was living apart from her husband, Paul Ely Jr.
Officer Seely had gone there to deal with an outstanding matter involving Paul Ely Jr., and what began as routine police business became a cascade of gunfire that shattered a family and a community. Corey and Jessica were pronounced dead at the scene; their mother survived with gunshot injuries. Funeral notices in the days that followed named Corey Paul Ely and placed his death in Anchorage on that date.
Accounts from the time describe Officer Seely confronting Paul Ely Jr. in connection with a warrant and a history of protective-order issues. When Officer Seely encountered him, Ely fled down a hallway and shot the officer at close range. Ely then moved to a nearby residence where Christina had taken refuge with neighbors, and in a frantic scene at the doorway and steps, he shot Jessica; the round passed through the child and struck her mother. He then shot Corey in the head as the boy sat on a neighbor's lap, before turning the gun on himself. Officer Seely died shortly after at the hospital; Corey, Jessica and their father died at the scene.
There were no arrests in the killing of four-year-old male Corey Ely: the suspected shooter was his father, Paul Ely Jr., who died by suicide immediately after shooting his children and Officer Seely. Earlier court matters and a $1,000 failure-to-appear warrant help explain why Officer Seely had been looking for Ely that day, but the criminal case ended on the spot with the gunman's death. Memorial and victim-advocacy listings created in later years continue to record Corey as lost to gun violence in Anchorage on October 26, 1996, and to group his death with those of his sister and Officer Seely in the same incident.
