After three days of deliberation, an Anchorage jury rendered their verdict on charges brought against Sara Dayan for the murder of Keith Huss in 2020: guilty on 15 of 22 counts.
The 39-year-old Homer resident gunned down Huss, her court-appointed supervisor, at MP 68.5 of the Seward Highway near the Turnagain Pass rest area on Sep. 28, 2020, after he’d picked her up at Wildwood Pretrial earlier that day.
“On behalf of my sisters and myself, you know, we’re just so grateful for all of their efforts, and we’re glad that our wait is over,” Michael Huss, Keith’s brother, told KTUU after the jury announced their decision. Michael, along with other members of the Huss family, were present for the verdict and had been in Anchorage for the better part of five weeks awaiting the trial’s conclusion.
“I’d just like to thank everybody. It was a long jury [deliberation]. The jury had to sit through a lot of testimony. It’s a very complicated case and we’re just so grateful that they were able to arrive at this conclusion,” Michael said.
The jury found Dayan guilty of first and second-degree murder, along with counts of burglary, theft, misconduct involving weapons, tampering with evidence, and fraudulent use of identification documents.
According to court documents, Huss, from Kenai, picked Dayan up from Wildwood Pretrial on Sep. 28, 2020. He had been appointed by the court to act as her third-party custodian.
The following day, on Sep. 29, Alaska State Troopers located Keith’s body near the Turnagain Pass rest area, having been hit by a car and shot. Court documents say Huss had suffered three gunshot wounds and showed signs of “trauma to his body,” sustained after being struck by a vehicle.
In the ensuing search, Dayan was seen patronizing multiple businesses in the Seward area, and Troopers sought the public’s help in locating her.
According to AST reports, Troopers, along with Seward Police and U.S. Park Police, finally tracked Dayan down at a parking lot near Mount Marathon in Seward, where she had driven a stolen vehicle. There, she’d attempted to get a ride from an individual in a van.
Troopers detained Dayan on the scene after removing her from the van.
Dayan’s sentencing hearing was set for 9 a.m. on May 6.
