Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 11:32:45 -0400 From: sw357mag@MINDSPRING.COM (Nancy) Subject: Anchorage Daily News - Occupant of apartment kills intruder To: AZRKBA@asu.edu
Anchorage Daily News - Occupant of apartment kills intruder Address:http://www.adn.com/metro/story/0,2633,254366,00.html
Occupant of apartment kills intruder POLICE: Investigators try to sort out the relationships. By Peter Porco Anchorage Daily News (Published April 3, 2001)
A man who broke into a Midtown apartment early Monday was shot dead by an occupant, Anchorage police said.
John DaSilva Jr., 27, of Anchorage was pronounced dead inside the small apartment at 3105 Eureka St., a gray flat-roofed five-plex. DaSilva may have been trying to burglarize the home, police said.
No charges have been filed in the case. Police said they are still investigating.
At least three people were inside the bedroom of apartment No. 1 at 3:30 a.m. when DaSilva broke the window beside the door and entered the kitchen-living area, said Detective Eric Hamre. He walked into the bedroom, where a confrontation took place, and was shot with a handgun by one of the people there.
"We don't have information about exactly what words were exchanged between the two," Hamre said.
DaSilva was known to one or more of the occupants, Hamre said, but he was not considered a friend.
"It's hard to know what's going through all of their heads," Hamre said. "Obviously there's some history there."
Police would not say whether DaSilva carried a weapon. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A neighbor living in an adjoining apartment said he was awakened by the sound of the window crashing.
"I heard a bunch of yelling, then a pop, pop, pop-pop-pop," said David King, a construction worker from Kenai who has been living on weekdays in the building for about two years. "It didn't register at first as gunfire because they're noisy all the time."
King learned later that a man had been fatally shot, he said, when police knocked on his door and asked whether he was all right.
The apartment has had so many occupants that it was hard to know who lived there, said Ryan Brownell, an engineer who has lived on the block for three years and was awakened by the noise.
"There are so many people coming and going, so many different people going in and out all the time," Brownell said.
By early Monday evening, police had left. The broken window had been replaced, and the apartment was empty when a young woman drove up. She got out of the car and began crying, saying DaSilva was the father of her two young children and she wanted to see where he died.
The woman would not give her name. She said she lives in the Mat-Su area. She opened the unlocked door of apartment No. 1 and walked inside.
The furnishings were disheveled. A radio was playing in the bedroom. Five holes, carefully marked and labeled, pocked one wall near the bedroom door. Another wall was smeared with blood.
The woman left without closing the door.
Reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com and at 27-4582.
Copyright 2001 The Anchorage Daily News