Man who escaped Mat-Su correctional facility seen in Flat Lake area

WASILLA — An inmate who walked away from a minimum security Mat-Su prison earlier this month was seen in the Flat Lake area near Big Lake late Monday night.

Brian Church, 59, escaped the Point Mackenzie Correctional Farm either late on April 11 or early on April 12. According to an Alaska State Trooper dispatch posted Tuesday night, AST received a report that a person broke into a cabin in the Flat Lake area. The person who made the report was able to supply AST with a photo of the suspect. Church was identified as the suspect in the photo, according to troopers.

AST and the Special Emergency Response Team responded to the cabin Tuesday at about 9 a.m.

“Church was no longer at the cabin, but SERT found evidence to suggest that Church was on foot apparently heading south,” troopers said in the dispatch.

The search for Church is ongoing. Troopers ask that anyone with information regarding Church call 911 immediately.

AST originally received a report that Church walked away from the correctional farm sometime between 10 p.m. on April 11 and 2 a.m. the following day.

Church, last seen by correctional farm staff wearing jeans and a shirt, is 6-foot-1 and about 205 pounds, according to the release. Church has brown and partially grey hair and brown eyes.

This is not the first time Church as escaped a state facility, or even the first time he has left the correctional farm, according to articles in the Frontiersman archive. According to a past Frontiersman story, Church escaped the correctional farm for the first time in 1997 and also walked away from the Glenwood Center in Anchorage in 2012.

Church was arrested by AST on Feb. 17, 2012, at a cabin on the Yentna River after a string of burglaries in the area. Church hit six cabins in the area, according to the 2012 Frontiersman story.

This is a developing story. Continue to see frontiersman.com for more.

Contact the Frontiersman at news@frontiersman.com.