Musher exposed for flashing piece

TALKEETNA — A top-20 Iditarod musher was arrested Sunday after Alaska State Troopers responded to a report shots had been fired at a home off of Cabin Spike Avenue.

The resident of Beaver Road who called troopers reported that a neighbor had driven an ATV onto their property and discharged a firearm around 10:36 p.m., troopers report.

“He had been sleeping when he heard an ATV pull into his driveway followed three or four gunshots,” Trooper Kevin Blanchette wrote, based on the man’s account of events.

The man said the shots were so close he thought they were coming into his trailer. He was afraid for his safety and dropped to the floor.

“After the last gunshot, he heard the ATV begin driving away. He belly-crawled to the door and peeked outside. He identified Gerald ‘Jerry’ Sousa, a neighbor, riding away,” Blanchette wrote.

So troopers went over to Cabin Spike Avenue and knocked on the door of a log home belonging to Sousa, 54, who placed 20th in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race this year.

“Sousa answered the door naked, holding a black revolver in his left hand. I immediately announced, ‘State troopers! Drop the gun!’” Blanchette wrote.

Sousa bent down and put the gun at his feet.

“As he was standing up I observed a silver revolver in his right hand,” Blanchette wrote. The right hand had been hidden behind the doorframe. Blanchette ordered Sousa to put that gun down as well.

“He then moved his entire body behind the door frame of the log-sided home and announced twice, ‘just shoot me,’” according to the report.

Eventually, Sousa complied, exiting the cabin with his arms in the air and was immediately arrested, troopers say.

Both revolvers had their hammers cocked back, both were six-shot guns but each held five bullets and no spent casings.

After taking Sousa into custody, troopers went to check on his girlfriend, Kathleen Holden, 55, of Talkeetna. Blanchette entered the bedroom where she was lying awake in bed and asked to see her hands. He writes that she slid one hand under a pillow and appeared to be “grasping an object.”

So he stripped off the blankets of the bed and flipped her on her back. She didn’t have a weapon. He ordered her to get up and go outside with him. Blanchette said she refused and tried to kick him. So he pulled her off the bed and cuffed one hand. Her second hand was near her face.

“When I grabbed her wrist, I felt her teeth bearing down on my hand, causing immediate pain. I immediately struck the side of her jaw with a closed fist preventing her from sinking her teeth into my hand,” Blanchette wrote.

Then he zapped her in the ribs with his Taser. She stopped resisting, but then kicked him with both feet in the chest when he went to grab her wrist again. So he used the Taser a second time.

With a second trooper’s help, he got her under control and under arrest. Blanchette wrote that both Holden and Sousa smelled of booze. Holden didn’t take a breath test, but Sousa blew a .113. The legal limit for driving is .08.

Sousa and Holden were remanded to the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility.

Holden was charged with misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest. She was initially held without bail, but by Thursday morning had managed to post bond and get released.

Sousa was charged with weapons misconduct, trespassing and three counts of felony assault. His bail was set at $20,000. By Thursday morning he had also made bail.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.