On August 7, 2022, just before 2:30 a.m., Ricardo James Duperior, a 28-year-old Black man, was shot to death inside an apartment in the Birchwood Homes neighborhood on Fairbanks’ east side. Officers arriving at the scene found two victims, including 18-year-old Rachel Elizabeth Wright, and detectives opened a double-homicide investigation.

In the hours after the shooting investigators asked neighbors for security-camera footage from roughly 1:30 to 2:30 a.m. In the months that followed police identified two 20-year-old suspects. On March 8, 2023, Fairbanks police announced charges of two counts of first-degree murder against Kapri Raymond Saleem Willis and Joshua Marquez Bell in the deaths of Ricardo James Duperior and Wright. Prosecutors later alleged Joshua Bell tried to arrange a murder-for-hire against the other defendant while in custody, an alleged plot recorded by an undercover detective and leading to additional charges.

The early-morning shooting left two families grieving and prompted a public canvass for witnesses and video; the motive remains a key unanswered question. If anyone has information about Ricardo, the scene that night, or security footage from Birchwood Homes between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m., please come forward.