Lyman Marshall Klein was 36 when he left his home in Manley Hot Springs, Alaska, on May 17, 1984, for a casual outing to the Tanana River boat landing with his pregnant wife, Joyce, and their two-year-old son, Marshall. The landing was a familiar local gathering spot; neighbors saw people there that afternoon, but by evening families realized Klein and others had not returned and reported multiple missing residents the next day.

Investigators traced a transient man, Michael Alan Silka, to the area; Silka had been seen camping near the river and was wanted in the earlier disappearance of a Fairbanks man. On May 19, troopers attempting to apprehend Silka were fired upon; Trooper Troy L. Duncan was killed and Silka was fatally shot. In the weeks that followed, searches of the Tanana River recovered four victims’ remains by late June 1984, including Klein’s. News and later memorial records list Klein’s death as May 17, 1984, and identify him among those lost to gun violence connected to the Manley Hot Springs incidents.

No arrests were made in Klein’s killing because the primary suspect died in the May 19 shootout. It remains unclear which recovered remains belonged to Joyce and young Marshall; reports noted some bodies were believed to have been carried away by the fast, silt-heavy river and difficult to recover.

Did anyone in the community have information about Klein, his family, or their last known movements at the landing?