A 21-year-old man faces two counts of first-degree murder after allegedly killing his parents with a hatchet in the western Alaska community of Shageluk.
Everett Semone told his sister that “something took over something in [his] mind,” according to a police affidavit filed in Aniak District Court Thursday. The affidavit states Semone attacked his parents in their Shageluk home Tuesday evening. Flossie Semone, 46, and John Arrow, 57, were later found dead from multiple hatchet wounds to their heads and upper bodies.
According to the affidavit, Madeline Semone jumped out of the home’s back window when Everett Semone began attacking their parents sometime before 9 p.m. Madeline Semone contacted another brother, Jarrett Semone, who called Roger Hamilton, 1st chief of the Shageluk Native Tribe. While Hamilton responded to the home to treat the two injured people, his wife, Alana Notti, called the Bethel Police Department, which in turn contacted Alaska State Troopers.
Around 10 p.m., Hamilton spoke with AST Sgt. Nicholas Zito by phone, and told him that Arrow and Flossie Semone both suffered visible wounds to their heads and faces. Flossie Semone was dead, Hamilton said.
Just before 4 a.m. Wednesday, Hamilton called Zito and told him that Everett Semone had returned to the scene of the crime and surrendered. He “came out of the grass in front of the house adjacent to the smoke shed,” according to the affidavit, and there was blood on his pants. He was cooperative, Hamilton said, and was being held at the Shageluk City Office while the community waited for troopers to arrive.
When two troopers made it to the town later that day, Flossie Semone and Arrow were found dead on the floor of their home — Semone in the living area and Arrow at the end of a hallway leading from the front door. Their wounds were “consistent with the use of a hatchet,” according to court documents.
A community statement, co-signed by Hamilton, expressed Shageluk’s outrage over the lack of immediate emergency medical and law enforcement response.
Everett Semone was arrested and scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Bethel.