More than two years after a double murder on Douglas Island, authorities believe they’ve identified the killer.
A Juneau grand jury on Friday indicted Laron Carlton Graham, 40, for two counts of first-degree murder for the Nov. 15, 2015 shooting deaths of 36-year-old Robert H. Meireis and 34-year-old Elizabeth K. Tonsmeire. Graham is currently in prison at Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward on unrelated charges.
On Nov. 15, 2015, Meireis and Tonsmeire were found shot dead at the Admiralty Condos on Douglas Island.
Juneau police announced the indictment via a press release Friday afternoon. In its release, JPD referred all questions to the District Attorney’s Office. Assistant Attorney General Cori Mills said the District Attorney’s Office will not be releasing any further information at this time about the case.
“Part of our job is to ensure that there is a fair trial,” Mills said via email, “and to do that, we have to be limited in what we disclose at this point in the process.”
The grand jury’s indictment lists nearly 50 search warrants involved in the investigation, including four of them in Anchorage (the rest were in Juneau). The indictment listed 17 witnesses the grand jury consulted.
In an unrelated 2016 trial, Graham was convicted on counts of felony vehicle theft, robbery, assault and witness tampering. He was also found guilty of nine misdemeanors, including violating a domestic violence protective order and for trespassing at the Gruening Park apartment where he threatened to throw his then-girlfriend out of a window while she was holding her 1-year-old child.
Graham represented himself in that trial. At one point, Graham asserted that JPD coerced people to file charges against him just so they could detain him for a murder investigation in which he was a suspect. The only recent and open murder investigation at that time, according to a report from the Empire, was the Meireis-Tonsmeire double murder.
It’s unclear what prompted the indictment to come now, as JPD and the DA’s office did not comment.
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Murder indictment (PDF)
Murder indictment (Text)
Juneau Police Department officers are shown entering a first floor unit at the Admiralty Condos in the 2700 block of Rogers Street in Douglas. (Juneau Empire File)
Elizabeth K. Tonsmeire (pictured) was one of two victims during a Nov. 15, 2015, double murder. (Courtesy photo | Facebook)
Robert H. Meireis (pictured) was one of two victims during a Nov. 15, 2015 double murder, along with Elizabeth K. Tonsmeire. (Courtesy photo | Facebook)
