Man found murdered as cabin burns

PALMER - As Alaska State Troopers found the body of a murdered 26-year-old Wasilla man in an abandoned vehicle in Palmer Monday night, a suspicious fire blazed in a small cabin only a mile away.

Troopers responded at 7:01 p.m. Feb. 14 to a report of an abandoned vehicle on Barry's Resort Road. They found Jeremiah C. Butler in the front passenger seat of a silver four-door pickup with a gunshot wound on the left side of his torso, a trooper press release said.

Autopsy results from the state medical examiner's office confirmed that Butler had been killed by the shot.

The truck was sent to the State Crime Detection Laboratory.

Troopers from the Alaska Bureau of Investigation in Palmer are trying to construct a timeline of the last 24 hours of Butler's life. They are also investigating whether there may be a link between Butler's death and the residential fire, which burned a nearby cabin the same night.

As troopers were discovering Butler's body, Central Mat-Su firefighters arrived at 5965 East Wolverine Ave. to find mangled locks on the doors, flames leaping from the roof and an especially intense fire within a small cabin.

"All they had to do was open the door," Central Mat-Su Fire Chief Jack Krill Jr. said.

Firefighters noticed that as they sprayed hose lines into the cabin, the fire "kept flashing back up - like an accelerant was there," Krill said.

The presence of an accelerant doesn't necessarily point to arson, he said. An old couch, for example, could be made of highly flammable materials. But the flashing was one of several unusual events that caused Krill, as incident commander, to be especially protective of scene safety.

"It was just kind of strange, like 'That fire's not going out like it should,'" he said.

Troopers' cars have been parked outside the lot since the fire, which is being investigated as a possible arson.

The cabin's occupant, Brandon Henry, was not home at the time. His aunt, who lives on an adjacent lot, called in the fire.

Krill said Henry's grandmother, who lives on the adjacent property, spoke to Henry on the telephone during the fire. He was in Meadow Lakes at the time.

The borough estimated the total damage to the gutted cabin at $12,700, Krill said.