Do you know who murdered Robert Workman?
Native American / Indigenous male Robert Work, age 55, was shot to death on March 10, 2014, in Anchorage, Alaska, as evening settled over a wooded patch near East 5th Avenue and Karluk Street. He and 47-year-old Mae Irene Melovidov had set up a tent there with a third camper when, just before 6 p.m., a man approached, tore open the flap, and opened fire. One victim died at the scene, another was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead a few hours later, and the surviving camper was taken for treatment with serious injuries. Police later identified the dead as Robert Work, originally from Shageluk, and Melovidov, originally from Saint Paul Island, and said both had been living in Anchorage for some time.
Detectives described a chaotic search for the gunman that night, with K-9 units, SWAT, and investigators combing the area while traffic flowed along the nearby streets. Initial reports described the suspect as a man about 5 feet 8 inches tall with a medium build, wearing a black jacket with vertical stripes and last seen running west toward 6th Avenue and Karluk Street. A later account from the surviving camper refined that picture: a man taller than 6 feet with shoulder-length black or brown hair. Despite the quick response, the assailant disappeared into the downtown grid and was gone.
In the days that followed, autopsies confirmed the gunshot deaths, and the case number—APD 14-9950—became a grim marker in the city's homicide files. The details were stark: three people ambushed inside a tent, two dead within hours, no clear motive left behind. Two years later, with leads exhausted, Anchorage police publicly renewed their plea for help and retold the scene in the simplest terms, hoping memory might stir: a lone male opening a tent and firing repeatedly, killing Robert Work, age 55, and Mae Melovidov, age 47, and fleeing into the cold evening.
No arrests were made, and the case remains unsolved. Crime Stoppers and local outlets have kept the call for tips alive, circulating the names, ages, and the setting—an impromptu campsite at the edge of downtown—along with the suspect descriptions and the knowledge that one witness survived. The story of that night now lives in brief police bulletins and periodic appeals, each one a reminder that the man who pulled open the tent and fired into its small, fragile shelter has never been identified.
