Crime & Justice

Jury convicts Anchorage man in 2014 slaying of Valley berry farmer

A jury on Friday convicted a 24-year-old Anchorage man in the 2014 machete slaying of a Mat-Su berry farmer, Alaska State Troopers report.

Thomas Cottam was convicted by a Palmer jury on charges of murder and vehicle theft, troopers said in an online dispatch posted Friday.

At the time of his arrest, charging documents said Cottam had been hitchhiking when Steven Garcia picked him up and offered him work at his small Valley berry-growing operation, located off the Old Glenn Highway near the Knik River Bridge.

Cottam was staying at Garcia's house when he attacked the 81-year-old raspberry and strawberry grower with a machete, charging documents said.

On May 18, 2014, Cottam turned himself in to police at the Anchorage jail, telling investigators he had blacked out during the attack.

The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reported that defense attorneys said Cottam acted in self-defense. But prosecutors countered that Garcia was in poor health and too frail to have been a threat.

Michelle Theriault Boots

Michelle Theriault Boots is a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She focuses on in-depth stories about the intersection of public policy and Alaskans' lives. Before joining the ADN in 2012, she worked at daily newspapers up and down the West Coast and earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.

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