Crime & Courts

Kidnapping victim says assailants claimed involvement in killings

A charging document filed in Anchorage against one of three alleged kidnappers includes assertions by the victim that her assailants claimed responsibility for several recent killings, and that they were gang-related.

Serge Azede II, wanted on a kidnapping charge, turned himself in late Monday, police said. The other suspects were William Burgess, 18, who was apprehended in Fairbanks early Monday, and Jean Vagao, 19, who was taken into custody by police shortly after the alleged incident.

Prosecutors unsealed the charging document against Azede on Tuesday following his initial court appearance at the Anchorage Correctional Complex. His bail was set at $250,000.

The men stand accused of targeting the victim, who is acquainted with Burgess, according to the charges. Burgess and his co-defendants carjacked the 15-year-old in the neighborhood of Mountain View, police said, leaving a second woman behind, on the night of Aug. 14.

Two hours later, police responded to a home on Eklutna Lake Road. A caller told police he found a young girl standing in the road with her hands zip-tied behind her back.

She later told police she was thrown down a hill and deserted. She said her life was threatened, police said. The girl cut a zip tie around her ankles using a rock, and she climbed to the road where the passer-by spotted her.

Here's what the girl told police, according to the charges:

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Burgess, an ex-boyfriend whom she knew only as William, kidnapped her. He drove a few blocks in the carjacked vehicle before switching to a red sedan occupied by two other men. During the drive, Burgess hit her with a gun, she said.

In the red sedan, she recognized a man she knew as Serge but was unfamiliar with the other occupant. Before the man she did not recognize forced her head down and tied her hands with zip ties, Azede cut her with a knife.

She told police she called Azede a "Slob," a slang term for a member of the Bloods gang. It made Azede mad because he was affiliated with another gang, the Crips. He cut the right side of her neck with a black-handled pocket knife.

The girl said she didn't know why she had been targeted but said she hangs around people her kidnappers wanted to kill.

She said the men demanded she tell them where members of another gang lived, but she refused. She said she didn't want them to kill her friends.

She also said she lived with Burgess in Fairbanks but returned to Anchorage "because her friends were getting killed," the charges say. She mentioned three victims by name: Xeryus "Iggy" Tate, 17;  Chaduer Chuol, 19; and Elijah Zeller, 18 — young men killed within a week in Anchorage.

"(Serge) told her they were the ones who killed them, and that they were going to kill the rest of them too," the charges say. The alleged kidnapper pledged to kill the remaining members of a gang until there were none left.

Deandrew Lee Jennings Walker-Webster II, 18, has been charged with manslaughter in the death of Tate. He turned himself in to police after posting a video to Facebook in which he claimed the shooting was accidental.

[Read more: Man wanted in Sunday shooting surrenders after a confession video surfaces]

In Chuol's death, 19-year-old Kuach Kuach turned himself into police Tuesday night. Police say Kuach was riding in the same car as Chuol when it crashed and killed Chuol. Detectives continue to look for people in another vehicle believed to have exchanged gunfire with the men before the wreck.

On the morning of July 30, someone dropped Elijah Zeller, 18, off at a hospital, bleeding from a gunshot wound. He died hours later. No one has been arrested in that case.

The Anchorage Police Department has said those homicides and others killings appear unassociated with gang activity. When asked if that perspective changed in light of the allegations against the kidnappers, spokesperson Renee Oistad said the police department did not have any gang-specific information to release.

"We continue to investigate the recent homicides this city has had and whether or not they are linked," Oistad said.

The information provided by the kidnapping victim has not been proven or disproven, she said.

"All of the current charges are ones we can prove with evidence we have gathered.  This investigation is ongoing," Oistad said. "Should we obtain more evidence that proves other crimes have been committed, then we will bring forth charges at that time."

[Related: 3rd suspect surrenders in alleged carjacking and kidnapping of woman]

Jerzy Shedlock

Jerzy Shedlock is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2017.

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