On the evening of May 3, 1982, Rebecca Dawn Becca Phillips, a 16-year-old from Anchorage, was among four teenagers shot to death in the north end of Russian Jack Springs Park. Gunfire erupted around nightfall; investigators later described the scene as among the grisliest they had encountered that night. Early accounts said the victims were walking in or near the park’s wooded stretch when they were struck; later reconstructions said the group crossed paths with a lone shooter and were fired on at close range.

Detectives focused on Charles Louman Meach III and arrested him on May 6, 1982. Meach, who had a prior homicide case in which he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, again raised mental illness in his defense. The 1982 killings prompted Alaska law changes narrowing the insanity defense and creating a guilty but mentally ill verdict that summer; those reforms did not apply retroactively to Meach’s case. A judge imposed four consecutive 99-year terms after a jury rejected an insanity acquittal.

Rebecca was born and buried in Anchorage; her family and the community mourned her loss. Anyone who knew Rebecca or was in Russian Jack Springs Park that evening and can add detail is asked to come forward.