Michael Silka

Michael Alan Silka (August 20, 1958 – May 19, 1984) was an American spree shooter and mass murderer who is believed to have fatally shot eleven people, with ten being fatal, in Alaska during May 1984, primarily in the small village of Manley Hot Springs. The spree culminated in a shootout with Alaska State Troopers in the Alaskan wilderness in which Silka was shot and killed. The motives for Silka's actions remain unclear. Silka's spree remains the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in Alaska's history.

Early life Michael Silka grew up in Hoffman Estates, a suburb northwest of Chicago. From an early age, he had a love of firearms and the outdoors, and had a history of encounters with the law. In 1975, Silka and another juvenile were apprehended while trying to steal camping gear and weapons from a Des Plaines sporting goods store. That same year, Silka and his brother Steve ran away from high school to the Canadian wilderness, returning when they had depleted their provisions. In February 1977, four months before graduating from high school, Silka was arrested for carrying an antique black-powder muzzle-loading rifle—reminiscent of the weapons used by early mountain men—through a park in the suburbs. He was arrested again for the same offenses later that year.

Shortly thereafter, Silka enlisted in the United States Army, at least partly on the advice of a longtime neighbor, Forman Hurst, who later recalled him as "a good kid, a typical teenager. He loved the outdoors. That was his No. 1 ambition, to be outside exploring nature."

Suspected murder of Roger Culp A bearded, 25-year-old drifter, Silka was first seen in Alaska in the Chena Ridge section of Fairbanks. On April 29, 1984, police had questioned Silka about fresh blood and a snow-covered mound at his cabin. At the time, the Alaska State Troopers were under the impression that they were investigating whether Silka himself had been killed. Troopers dropped the matter when Silka stuck his head out of his shack and explained that the blood was from a moose hide.

However, Silka's neighbor, Roger Culp, had gone missing the day before. Witnesses reported that Silka and Culp went into Silka's cabin, and later heard as many as eight gunshots.

Manley Hot Springs Silka was next seen on Monday, May 14, 1984, at the end of a dirt road (Alaska Route 2) in Manley Hot Springs, a tiny mining town of 70 people located west of Fairbanks and deep in the interior of Alaska. He was driving a battered brown and white 1974 Dodge Monaco filled with camping equipment and an aluminum canoe mounted on the roof. Unseen by villagers among the equipment were guns and ammunition. According to one resident, Robert E. Lee, Silka told the villagers that he planned to settle in the area. Silka described himself to Lee as a "mountain man". Two helicopters, three planes and the Troopers' Special Emergency Reaction Team were sent to Manley at 2 a.m. Saturday, May 19. Troopers at the shootout said it was reminiscent of combat in the Vietnam War.

A memorial service for the victims was held at the boat landing on Sunday, May 20. For months, families and friends of the victims searched the brush choked banks of the Tanana. fur trapper and fisherman, whose boat was stolen by Silka Albert Hagen Jr., 27, Alaska Native construction worker who had just returned six weeks previous to visit his parents after a ten-year absence. Unmarried, he had been living in California previously. Joyce Klein, about 30, who was four months pregnant and had gone to the river for an outing with her husband and son Lyman Klein, 36, husband of Joyce Klein Marshall Klein, 2, son of Joyce and Lyman Klein Dale Madajski, 24, a carpenter, cabin builder Larry Joe McVey, 38, a trapper and disabled Vietnam veteran (he was severely injured by a booby-trapped gasoline can during the war) Roger Culp, 34, a wood cutter, possible victim Troy L. Duncan, 34, an Alaska State Trooper since August 1981 and a ten-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps