Do you know who murdered Michael Allen Beavers? On July 24, 1989, on the northwest shore of uninhabited Fire Island just west of Anchorage, Alaska, searchers found weathered human remains. The initial autopsy concluded the victim was a Caucasian male between 35 and 50, and the condition of the bones suggested they had lain exposed on the beach for at least a year. Evidence on the remains indicated the death was criminal in nature, but the date of death could not be fixed.
With no name to attach to the case, the unknown Caucasian male was interred at Anchorage Municipal Cemetery while investigators waited for science to catch up.
A decade earlier, in late November 1979, a 40-year-old male, Caucasian Alaskan named Michael Beavers left his home in Chugiak, outside Anchorage, to drive to Seattle for business. The heavy-equipment operator who owned an excavation company never arrived. His wife reported the 40-year-old male, Caucasian victim missing in January 1980; the investigation went cold and was closed in 1982, and he was declared deceased in 1992. For years, the disappearance of a 40-year-old male, Caucasian Alaskan and the nameless man on Fire Island seemed like separate stories that shared only a state and the sea.
In 2003, hairs and tissue retained from the autopsy yielded a mitochondrial DNA profile at the FBI laboratory, but no match surfaced. The break came in 2021, when the Alaska Bureau of Investigation's cold-case unit reopened the file and sent bone to Othram, a private lab that extracted enough DNA for forensic-grade genome sequencing. Genealogy leads pointed to an Alaskan family; a close relative's DNA then confirmed that the remains discovered on July 24, 1989 belonged to Michael Beavers—the same 40-year-old male, Caucasian who vanished in 1979 from the Anchorage area. After 32 years, the Fire Island John Doe finally had his name back.
Authorities have said from the outset that the evidence marks this as a homicide, but no arrests have been announced and no suspect or suspects have been publicly identified in the killing of a 40-year-old male, Caucasian Alaskan whose remains surfaced near Anchorage. The investigation is ongoing; state troopers continue to appeal for tips to reconstruct the final days after the 40-year-old male, Caucasian left Chugiak in 1979 and to learn who carried out the crime that ended on Fire Island.
