A graduate student from Colorado was killed over the weekend, caught up in a rampage in Alaska that started with a murder by machete and ended with a police chase and crash.
Jason Wenger from Brighton was warming up his SUV in Anchorage on Sunday when he was randomly shot.
The alleged killer fled without taking the 27-year-old’s SUV, said Paul Honeman, Anchorage police spokesman.
At the time, suspect Christopher Erin Rogers Jr., 28, was on the run after allegedly hacking his father to death and critically injuring his father’s girlfriend with a machete.
Honeman said Rogers Jr. is in custody in connection with the two deaths, among other charges.
“We charged him with the whole shebang,” he said. “It’s very bizarre.”
Wenger was seeking a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage and was considering seeking a doctorate at Denver University, said his mother, Deborah Staub, of Brighton.
“We expected him to fly home on the 14th for 2 1/2 weeks for Christmas,” Staub said. “We’re going to bury him next to his natural father in Carlisle, Pa., who died 25 years ago this month.”
The elder Wenger died in a weight-lifting accident.
Wenger earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado in psychology and creative writing, Staub said. He hoped to become a college professor.
“He was a very gregarious, fun-loving guy who didn’t take himself too seriously,” Staub said. “He bent over backwards to help other people.”
While Wenger was helping disabled adults find jobs, Rogers Jr., a construction worker, was serving a probation sentence for drunken driving.
After his arrest, Rogers Jr. told officers he was angry at his father and his father’s girlfriend, Elann Moren, 55, Honeman said. His family thought “poorly” of him, he told police.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, Rogers Jr., who went by Erin, spent the night at the home of his father and Moren in Palmer. Moren told police she awoke as Erin was standing over her slashing her with a machete and saying “You made me do this,” the paper reported. That was about 5:30 a.m. Sunday
Once Rogers Jr. killed one person, he told police, it didn’t matter if he killed anyone else, Honeman said. He took his father’s truck and drove to Anchorage, he said. There, he took guns and ammunition from his father’s truck, abandoned the truck and searched for alternative transportation and more victims, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
He shot Wenger about 8 a.m. Sunday.
That night, about 7:30 p.m., Rogers Jr. allegedly shot and injured Elizabeth Rumsey, 33, as she was walking home on a bike path, Honeman said. Monday morning, he shot Tamas Deak, 43, at about 7 a.m. as he was starting his SUV, he said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
