Douglas Cleaves

 Just after midnight on 19 October 1985, Douglas Cleaves was relaxing with his sister and two of his friends at his home in Anchorage, Alaska, when they heard a couple of loud knocks at the front door. Doug's sister, Susan, got up to get it. Standing at the door was a masked figure wearing a balaclava, combat gloves, and a tan-colored trench coat, who was holding what looked like a bolt-action hunting rifle. This unknown individual stormed inside and shot Doug five times…

This episode contains audio from an interview with Doug’s sister, Susan, which is not transcribed below. It’s highly encouraged to listen to the episode to hear what Susan says about Doug and the case.

Douglas Jeffrey Cleaves grew up in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, a small town approximately 30 miles west of Newark and roughly halfway between Allentown, PA and New York City. There, he would grow up under the tutelage of his two older brothers, and was a constant companion for his sister, Susan, who was little more than a year younger than him.

Doug was an avid outdoorsman, who loved anything to do with nature. As you just heard from his sister, Susan, he was a big guy - he stood approximately 6'4" and weighed approximately 250 pounds as an adult - which was perfect, because Doug had ambitions of joining the Army. So as a teenager, Doug decided to drop out of high school to do just that.

After enlisting, Doug was sent for basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Afterward, he would train to become both an artilleryman and a paratrooper, serving out a single four-year enlistment before seeking an honorable discharge. However, Doug's time in the military would let him achieve another goal he'd been preparing for since childhood: a move to Alaska.

During his time in the Army, Doug had sought out the chance to be stationed in Alaska, spending time in both Fairbanks and Anchorage. During that time, he had fallen in love with the state itself - which, as a current resident, I can't blame him, this state is beautiful - and after serving out his enlistment, Doug decided to remain there. His brother Richard would later recall to the Anchorage Daily Times:

"Doug was always what you would deem a rugged individual. He was just kind of naturally headed that way, and he went up there."

One thing about Doug's tenure in the Army that has never been cleared up is whether or not he was involved in the Special Forces. As you heard a second ago, his sister assumed that was the case based on something the family had heard from Doug, but it's unknown if that was true. Maybe it's possible that Doug intended to train for the Green Berets if he stayed in the military, but that never came to be.

Regardless, after separating from the military, Doug did join the National Guard. He then began working a number of jobs in Alaska, including bouncing for a brief time at Swiftwater Bill's, a local watering hole. Later, he would relocated up to Talkeetna, a small town a couple of hours north of Anchorage, which is known as a scenic, tourist-y vacation spot. There, he worked for an air taxi company, which he seemed to really enjoy.

Later, after moving back to Anchorage, he would begin to dabble in manual labor, things like construction and welding... but more on that later.

During this time, it also became apparent that Doug was a big fan of marijuana, with Alaska having decriminalized it in the years prior. In 1975, Alaska turned the possession of small amounts of weed into a misdemeanor; and then, in 1982, decriminalized it to allow residents to have up to 4 ounces inside their home or 1 ounce outside of it. Now, marijuana is completely legal in the state, even though it's not yet federally legal.

While this wouldn't play a large part in Doug's story, it would contribute to some theories later on.

A little while after leaving the military, Doug struck up a relationship with a woman named Charlotte Palmer. The two started dating in 1982, and then surprised everyone by filing for a marriage license in January of 1983. At the time, the two were living in Talkeetna; at least, that's where they applied for the marriage license.

Just a handful of months later - on August 24th, 1983 - the two would welcome their son into the world. Named Robert, this son would quickly become the primary focus of Doug's life, with Richard Cleaves later telling reporters with the Anchorage Daily Times:

"... any time I had correspondence with him, he spent 95 percent of the time talking about his son."

Sadly, though, the relationship with Charlotte Palmer would deteriorate rather-quickly. Charlotte filed for divorce just over a year after they had gotten married, in April of 1984, and Doug decided not to contest it. According to Doug's sister, Susan, this marriage was definitely not long for this world.

During the process of divorcing his ex-wife, Doug would file for sole custody of their son, Robert. However, due to many continuances over the next several months, the court case came together rather-slowly. It wasn't until the summer of 1985 that the case began to come to a head, with it overseen by Palmer Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler.

As reported by the Anchorage Daily Times, both parents argued that they were the better parent for Robert and presented witnesses in their defense.

For her argument, Charlotte claimed that Doug was a frequent drug user - claiming that he not only smoked weed (which he did, admittedly) but that he also regularly used cocaine and even sold marijuana. As you'd expect, Doug refuted these claims, but did admit that he smoked weed regularly, just never in front of his son. Because it was decriminalized at the time, it was hard for the judge to look down on him for this behavior. And since Charlotte had no evidence to present that Doug either used cocaine or sold marijuana, those claims were largely dismissed.

In the end, it was Doug who won primary custody, with Judge Cutler handing down the decision on June 27th, 1985. And, as reported by Debra McKinney of the Anchorage Daily News:

"Charlotte's visitation was limited to 48 hours every other week, plus four hours on her son's birthday, with the alternating Christmas Eves and Christmas Days until the boy turned 8. As time passed, the decision stated, visitation could be increased if determined to be in the best interest of the child. Both (parents) were ordered to take parenting classes."

Martin Dooley, a close friend of Doug's, later told reporters with the Anchorage Daily Times:

"The day he got custody of Robert, he wouldn't let anybody else talk. He was so excited. I drove him back from Palmer, and that's all he talked about. That's all he had been worried about."

Despite winning custody of his son in June of 1985, Doug's life was veering toward an irreversible change in the weeks to come.

On Thursday, July 18th, 1985, Doug was working at a construction site in Eagle River, a suburb of Anchorage, just a dozen or so miles north of the city itself. He was part of a crew that was building a pizza place near the Carr's supermarket just off of the onramp to Eagle River. At the time, he was working for Anchorage Tank and Welding.

Doug was unloading steel from a truck alongside another coworker, Thomas Michels, guiding a steel girder off of the truck when a crane lifting the girders hit an electric transmission line above. The power shut off immediately - causing an outage for approximately 20 minutes, affecting approximately 5000 customers in the vicinity - but Doug and Thomas were still holding onto the steel girder when the crane hit the electrical line.

As a result, electricity from the line surged down the cable and into them, according to Fire Inspector Richard Benavides, causing Doug and Thomas Michels to receive significant third degree burns. The operator of the crane was not injured because the vehicle itself was grounded, but the two workers on the ground were sent off to be treated at Providence Hospital; in particular, the Thermal Unit.

Without getting into too much detail... basically, Doug's feet had exploded due to the surge of heat and electricity that coursed through his body. And his fingerprints had also been severely burned, with his fingertips being etched onto the metal beam he'd been holding at the time.

In a single instant, Doug's entire life - the way he walked, the way he got around, the way he held things, the way he scratched an itch - had changed irreversibly.

Following this accident, Doug's life would change dramatically. The bottom of his legs were amputated just below the knee, and he had to have all of his fingertips treated for significant burns. However, in the weeks to come, he would refuse to leave the state of Alaska - which he now called "home" - with his brother Donald telling reporters with the Anchorage Daily Times:

"Doug loved Alaska so much, he never wanted to leave. Even after his accident, he wanted to stay there."

In the months to come, 25-year-old Doug Cleaves would begin to adapt to his new life... not only as a single father living along the 8900 block of Forrest Village Drive in Anchorage, in the Sand Lake duplex; but as someone who was handicapped, who no longer had the use of his legs and had to let his fingers heal.

Surprising almost no one in his life, though, Doug refused to let the accident define him. As he had done with almost everything in his life, Doug gritted his teeth and put in the work to make his reality better. When he could, he tried to use humor and hard work to speed up his recovery, and nurses seemed to marvel at his good spirits during those early days, when most people struggled to come to grips with what they'd lost.

That being said, life was not without its difficulties, especially when it came to being the father of a two-year-old. With a child approaching that age myself, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Doug following his accident.

Registered Nurse Laura Murray later told Debra McKinney of the Anchorage Daily News:

"He was difficult to work with because he wanted to move forward so quickly. And he was angry... which is just a normal part of that sort of horrific, life-changing injury. His life changed in split seconds, so dramatically. Of course he was angry. He was grieving the loss of his limbs, the loss of a lifestyle. Nurses get that; we totally expect that and respect the process."

To make matters even worse, Doug's ex-wife Charlotte filed for custody of two-year-old Robert the day after Doug's accident, on July 19th, 1985, which was before doctors had even made the decision to amputate Doug's feet. That motion was denied in August, but would later be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court in September.

Later that month, September, Doug was finally discharged from the hospital and began settling into his new life at the Sand Lake duplex in south Anchorage. His 22-year-old sister, Susan, would come up and visit, the first of what was intended to be many trips by Doug's family members to come and help out however they could. There, Susan would have to witness Doug go through many repeated difficulties: not only adapting to life with the loss of his limbs and the phantom limb pain that accompanied it, but having to try and keep custody of his son, which he'd fought so hard for in the preceding years.

During this trip, though, Susan began to realize that Doug was going to make it through his recovery and quickly adapt to his new life, if only for one reason: to be there for his son, Robert.

After coming home from the hospital in September of 1985, Doug quickly began to adapt to his new life. He moved into a home at 8962 Forrest Village Drive, a duplex just off of West 88th Avenue that was surrounded by similar homes and duplexes.

On Saturday, October 19th, 1985, Doug was enjoying some down-time with his sister, Susan, who'd come up to visit; and two of Doug's friends, who were also women. One was Doug's girlfriend, who worked as a dancer at the Great Alaskan Bush Company, a gentleman's club in Anchorage; the other was a friend that lived nearby and had helped watch Robert in the past. That weekend, Robert was away at his mother Charlotte's house.

That evening, Doug and the women enjoyed a dinner of crab legs, and then started relaxing and watching "Fame." But just after midnight, there were a couple of loud knocks at the front door. Susan got up to get it, and cracked open the door to discover a masked figure standing outside: someone wearing a balaclava, gloves, and a trench coat, holding what looked like a bolt-action hunting rifle. She attempted to close the door quickly, but the figure had inserted the barrel of the gun between the door and the frame before she could do so.

The masked gunman barreled into Doug's home, past Susan, who was knocked backwards. After entering, the gunman made a beeline for Doug, who was laying on a pillow on the ground, without his legs, unable to run or fight back in any way.

Doug's two friends, who were laying on the ground near him, attempted to clear out of the way, screaming as they did so.

News articles report that one was unable to get out of the way, with an errant bullet grazing them as the gunman shot and missed at Doug. Another news article claims that this bullet went through a nearby wall, nearly hitting a woman on the other side. However, I've been unable to verify either claim.

Doug attempted to plead with the shooter from the ground, telling them:

"Hey, don't shoot, I understand what's going on, don't shoot. We can work this out."

Sadly, though, these would prove to be his last words. Doug was shot a total of five times - three times in the head and twice in the chest - and was killed instantly. Afterward, the masked gunman turned and fled through the same door he'd entered, disappearing into the night.

The investigation into the murder of Douglas Cleaves was headed by the Anchorage Police Department, who responded to the crime scene at approximately 12:22 on the morning of October 19, 1985.

During interviews with Susan and the other two women that had been present - as well as reports from neighbors that had heard the gunshots and looked toward Doug's apartment at the time - investigators gathered that the gunman had approached the duplex wearing a ski mask and a tan-colored trenchcoat, along with combat gloves. They had carried a high-powered hunting rifle which shot large-caliber rounds, but investigators never publicly released the specific make and model.

In most of the early reporting, the gunman was reported as being thin, and standing somewhere between 5'6" and 5'8" tall, which would make them on the smaller side for a male shooter. For that reason, the gender of the shooter has always been questioned, and investigators have never definitively stated that they were looking for a male or female shooter.

Witnesses near the crime scene told police about a vehicle seen leaving the area at the time, including a description of the vehicle and a license plate number, but investigators claimed the vehicle was just someone unconnected to the incident that had been coincidentally driving through the area.

Weeks after the shooting, in October of 1985, Crime Stoppers would offer up a $10,000 reward in the hopes that it would compel someone to step forward that'd lead to closure for the case. Later, that reward would be increased to $25,000. However, that same month saw a rash of shootings throughout the area, with Anchorage itself reporting at least six firearm-related offenses in October of 1985. For that reason, Doug's heinous murder was somewhat drowned out by the other news in the region, and was quickly placed on the back burner of public consciousness.

One of the main theories in this case is that Doug died as a result of some kind of drug connection he'd had. If you look up this case on the very few message board threads that have discussed it, you'll see this theory come up at least once or twice, and seems to have been borne out of allegations made by Doug's ex, Charlotte Palmer, during their custody proceedings, when she alleged that he was regularly using cocaine and selling marijuana.

However, to put it bluntly: I have found zero evidence to support this claim. In fact, the only evidence that Doug was involved in the world of drug-dealing were these allegations by his ex, during a legal proceeding in which she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. While Doug admittedly liked to smoke marijuana, there is no indication that he was a drug user or dealer in any other capacity.

Sadly, though, this idea that a murder victim was involved in drug-dealing is something that affects a lot of unsolved criminal cases, so this isn't a problem specific to Douglas Cleaves. But it is a worrying trend that I feel dilutes a lot of unsolved cases, as it seems to give society an "out" to ignore the issue and not press any harder. But in this specific case, I feel like pushing back on it, because the argument itself is usually pretty hollow, and just boils down to: this person likely used or sold illegal narcotics, so they likely got what was coming to them.

While research on this subject isn't foolproof - anything regarding illicit substances are - but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 13% of the U.S. population has used an illicit drug in the past month. That's nearly 1 in every 7 people above the age of 12, who has admittedly used an illegal substance within the past 30 days. Sadly, though, many of the people who do use these substances are at-risk in some way or another.... whether it be through their lifestyle, their personal connections, etc. As a result, these people are often at the highest risk of physical violence by someone they know, or are more vulnerable to it.

This isn't an issue that pertains to Doug's story, I know - in fact, I do apologize for ranting about this during an episode in which it's not particularly useful - but I just hate that "drugs" has become a catch-all to explain why someone was murdered. But in this case, even if Doug had sold marijuana on the side - assuming that everything his ex-wife said during a legal proceeding, which a Judge found no evidence of - him getting murdered still doesn't make sense.

Even though public perception would have you believe that every drug dealer is just an inherently violent criminal, this seems to be something borne out of the decades-long War on Drugs and not something that happens all-that-often in real life. While there definitely are criminal factions that war with each other over drugs and money, the idea that Doug - even if he were a small-time dealer - was going to be killed by a competitor just seems rather-silly to me. He had been laid up in a hospital for months, recovering from getting his legs amputated below the knee, and his death would have served no purpose.

If he owed a drug debt of some kind, wouldn't it have made more sense to get that money back before killing him? And if his death was used to send a message to other potential drug-dealers in the area, why had the gunman chosen that particular night to kill him, leaving behind three witnesses alive and unharmed?

To me, this just shows the flaw in assuming that anyone who is killed violently - and for seemingly no reason - is involved in the world of drugs.

That being said, it is definitely possible that money may have played some kind of motive in Doug's death.

Another one of the main theories in this case pertains to Doug's money... or, at least, money that he had coming to him.

If you recall, just a few months before his death, Doug had been a serious accident resulting in the loss of his legs and significant damage to his fingertips. This accident happened on a worksite, and as a result, Doug was going to get paid out pretty significantly. When speaking to his sister, Susan, I learned that Doug was already making plans for this money, hoping to start up his own air-taxi company in Alaska, which he'd be able to operate even after his injury. This would give him and his son something adventurous to do together, and Doug hoped that he'd one day be able to hand over the company and its assets to Robert. Sadly, he never got that chance.

So with that in-mind, in almost every murder, we have to look at people who'd have something to gain. In Doug's case, we don't have to look too far.

In the months before his murder, Doug had been in a heated custody battle with his ex-wife, Charlotte, over the custody of their son, Robert. As you've heard, Charlotte accused Doug of being a drug dealer, and claimed that she had the best interests of Robert at heart. Her claims were later rejected by a judge in Alaska's Superior Court. She had filed numerous appeals in an attempt to overturn the verdict, and then had those appeals rejected, including after Doug's injury.

In the aftermath of this workplace accident, Doug stood to gain a lot of money... money that was passed to his son, Robert, in the wake of his murder. After Doug's murder, custody then defaulted to the only remaining parent, Charlotte.

During our conversation , Doug's sister Susan told me that her interest in the case has waned over the years, with her involvement starting and stopping numerous times. Not because she's disinterested in obtaining justice for her murdered brother, mind you, but because it's just too heartbreaking for her to pursue it regularly.

Even though this sense of guilt is misplaced, in my opinion, Susan feels responsible for opening the door to Doug's killer... even though she had no idea what awaited her on the other side. She feels the effect of that decision every day.

In the years since, Susan has spoken to some of the officers and investigators that worked the case to learn more about the current status of the investigation, despite Anchorage P.D. remaining pretty tight-lipped about it. They usually make it a point not to comment on most open or unsolved cases, so this isn't unusual.

However, during one of these conversations, Susan did learn about a potential person of interest, who she believes may have played some part in Doug's murder: a man named Michael Hagood, who lived in the area at the time of the killing. However, I was not able to learn much about him, because he died nearly a decade ago, in a violent and tragic fashion.

Early on the morning of Thursday, October 17th, 2013, 40-year-old Nita Kilapsuk called Anchorage P.D., letting them know that her boyfriend, 49-year-old Michael Hagood, was holding her at gunpoint against her will. The two were at a plot of land Hagood owned in Chugiak, a small town approximately 20 miles north of Anchorage, which was peppered with equipment and vehicles Hagood had collected, including a retrofitted People Mover bus where Hagood regularly stayed on the weekends.

This call took place just after 4:00 AM, and Nita was on the line for approximately six minutes, during which time, the phone passed between her and Hagood, who was drunk and holding a gun to his girlfriend. Eventually, the line disconnected, either accidentally or on purpose.

Police arrived at the property approximately seven minutes after the call began, at 4:10 AM. But approximately one minute before officers began approaching, they heard two gunshots come from the direction of the bus. When they made it there moments later, they discovered two bodies; Michael Hagood had killed his girlfriend, Nita Kilapsuk, before turning the gun on himself.

That is sadly where the story just kind of ends. Police never publicly revealed many details of the event - such as what kind of gun Hagood used, or what had preceded this event - so all we know is that Michael Hagood killed Nita Kilapsuk before killing himself.

The only thing I can think of is that the date in which this took place - October 17th - was just a day or so shy of the 28th anniversary of Douglas Cleaves' murder. And normally, I would find this to be a total coincidence, but during Susan's conversations with officers and investigators that worked on her brother's case, she learned about a potential link to Michael Hagood. Maybe this was a throwaway line of inquiry opened up by investigators at some point in time, but in the future, I'd love to learn more about any possible connections between Michael Hagood and Douglas Cleaves... whether they knew each other, had any shared interests or connections, whether they ran in the same social circles, anything. If you know anything, please reach out.

Sadly, after the death of Douglas Cleaves, his son Robert defaulted into the care of his mother, Charlotte, who almost immediately took him and left the state with her new boyfriend, who later became her husband. Shortly thereafter, the two married and Robert's last name was changed to his stepfather's. His mother and stepfather would end up having two half-siblings - a brother and a sister - but sadly his sister died in a car accident.

After leaving Alaska, Susan and other members of Doug's family - including his parents, Robert's grandparents - never thought they'd get the chance to see him again. But a handful of years ago, Susan started looking him up on Facebook, and reconnected with her long-lost nephew.

To this day, Susan continues to push for her brother to be remembered... not just as a murder victim, but as someone who had lived an entire life before that. Someone who was charming and funny and kind and adventurous, and someone who loved his son.

In June of 1989, Anchorage homicide investigator Joe Austin told reporters with the Anchorage Daily Times that police had a good idea of had killed Doug Cleaves, but didn't have enough evidence to press charges. Decades later, things seem to be mostly-unchanged, with Doug's case remaining a footnote in multiple articles regarding unsolved homicides in Alaska, but creating very few headlines in the process.

Anyone with information in this case is encouraged to call Anchorage P.D. at (907) 786-8900. If desired, you can remain anonymous and also make yourself eligible for a cash reward by contacting Crime Stoppers at (907) 561-STOP. If you'd like to chat with me about Doug or his case, you can also reach out to me personally at micheal@unresolved.me or through the Unresolved phone line at (831) 200-3550.

Until such a time, the story of Douglas Cleaves will remain unresolved.