Anchorage Walmart shooting that left 2 dead was murder-suicide, police say

The Walmart Supercenter in South Anchorage on Old Seward Highway. (Marc Lester / ADN)

A man shot and killed a woman in the parking lot of the Dimond Walmart in Anchorage on Sunday night before killing himself, police said two days after the shooting .

Anchorage police had earlier said a man and woman had died of their injuries in the parking lot outside the store in South Anchorage, and a firearm was located at the scene. In a short update Tuesday, police said 29-year-old Saina Fa’atoafe fatally shot the woman before killing himself. No one else was involved, police said, and next of kin have been notified of their deaths.

One of the people killed in the shooting was an employee of the store who was on a break at the time, a Walmart spokesperson said Monday. Anchorage police said they would not release the woman’s identity due to the shooting being a domestic violence-related crime.

Walmart is providing bereavement counseling to employees, the company spokesperson said.

Some Walmart shoppers described a sudden lockdown in the immediate aftermath of Sunday evening’s shooting, which triggered an evacuation at the busy store and closed that location for the rest of the night. The Walmart had reopened as of Monday.

In the hours after the shooting, an Anchorage police officer at the scene had said that police were looking for a suspect. In the days since, the police department has released little additional information and refused to answer some questions about the incident, with a spokeswoman saying Monday that they believed they had “contacted everyone involved” and that there was no public safety concern.

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