Family still seeks answers

MAT-SU — It’s been well over a year since Chelsi Baun and Tobias Siegel died at a home off of Hyer Road, both from gunshot wounds. While Alaska State Troopers say they have run out of room to investigate and have been forced to conclude that either one or both slayings were accidental, it’s not quite settled in the minds of the families.

“No, we’re not settled. We’re not comfortable with this story. We absolutely feel that there’s more to the story and we don’t know what that is,” Baun’s father Mark Cox said by phone from Colorado, where he lives.

He and his family have set up a Facebook page — “Who Murdered Chelsi Cox Baun and Tobias Siegel” — and are offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who comes forward with information leading to prosecution.

Here’s how Alaska State Troopers summarize their findings, according to spokeswoman Megan Peters:

“The investigation has revealed that Chelsi Baun was fatally struck by a bullet from a gun fired by Tobias Siegel, though it remains unclear if this was his intent. A third person then struggled with Tobias Siegel over control of the gun, and it discharged, killing him. The matter concerning the death of Siegel was referred to the Palmer (District Attorney’s Office), but it was declined for prosecution.”

The story as it’s told in more than 70 pages of a report troopers released to the Frontiersman is that in 2012, on the evening of April 20 and into the morning of April 21, Siegel and some friends went out to the nightspot then known as Rumrunners at the Mat-Su Resort.

Cox said Chelsi lived with him in Colorado at the time and was in Alaska so her son could visit his father, who she had divorced. She ran into Siegel a former Chugiak High classmate, at Rumrunners that night.

Siegel, his friends and Baun went back to his house.

“There was a physical altercation between Tobias Siegel, Jonathan Koerber and Twyla Burger,” according to a document Investigator Mark Granda prepared and was included in the official report.

Accounts of that altercation vary among the handful of people who were in the house that night — one of Siegel’s roommates and his girlfriend were also there — but they seem to involve lot of punching and the smashing of a coffee table.

None of the accounts offer a coherent or convincing description of what the argument was over.

According to Burger’s account, at the tail end of the fighting, Siegel went into his room and got a gun. A round was fired — Burger said she didn’t see it happen — and then she wrestled with Siegel over the gun. It went off and Siegel was shot. The bullet traveled through his body, through a wall, a ceiling and into a rafter.

Baun died on scene. Siegel was rushed to the hospital, but succumbed to his injuries. Troopers initially reported the incident as a murder-suicide, but soon afterwards recanted. The eventual opinion, as summarized by Peters, was that Baun and Siegel were both victims of homicide.

Homicide, though, means only that a person died at the hands of another. It could be accidental. Troopers can’t rule either slaying a murder.

So what did happen that night? Two of the three people who could say are dead. According to nearly all of the witness accounts, Burger, Siegel and Baun were the only people inside at the time. Koerber, Siegel’s roommate and that roommate’s girlfriend were all outside.

Since the shootings, Cox and his wife, Joan Cox, have reached out to Siegel’s family. He said troopers have expressed surprise at that. According to their information, after all, Siegel is very likely the one who shot Baun. But Joan Cox said it would only be unusual if that were the version of events she and her husband believed. Mark Cox said he does not.

“In my judgment I feel like he was trying to protect his home and maybe even my daughter,” Mark Cox said. “If he did shoot my daughter it was definitely by accident.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.