Anchorage Grand Jury Indicts Jose Evangelista on 2016 Murder

From the Attorney General’s Office:

Oct. 17, 2022 (Anchorage, AK) – An Anchorage grand jury recently indicted 39-year-old Jose Evangelista on two counts of second-degree murder in a six-year-old case. Evangelista is charged with the shooting death of Jose Gonzalez on July 16, 2016.

Gonzalez was reported missing by his coworkers. The missing persons case was investigated by the Anchorage Police Department, but efforts to locate Gonzalez were unsuccessful, and the case became cold.

In the summer of 2021, Alaska State Troopers located human remains in Turnagain Pass. Through DNA testing by the FBI Laboratory, the remains were identified as Mr. Gonzalez. With this new evidence, the Anchorage Police Department opened a homicide investigation into the case, and the Department of Law, Office of Special Prosecutions, presented the case to the grand jury on Oct. 11.

“Once Mr. Gonzalez was identified, the case was assigned to the Anchorage Police Department Cold Case Unit for follow up. That investigation has led to Jose Evangelista being charged and indicted for the murder of Jose Gonzalez,” said APD Homicide Sergeant Rayne Reynolds. “We would like to thank the State of Alaska Medical Examiner’s Office, the Alaska State Troopers, the Alaska State Crime Detection Laboratory, the FBI Laboratory, and the citizens who helped close this case with an arrest.”

If convicted at trial, Mr. Evangelista faces a sentence of up to 99 years of imprisonment. Evangelista is in the custody of the Department of Corrections. He is scheduled to be arraigned before the Superior Court in Anchorage on Oct. 19, 2022.

These charges are only allegations and are not evidence of guilt. Defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.