Anchorage Daily News

Michael Ray Stith, surrounded by police, K-9 dogs and a SWAT team, ended a four-day string of robberies when he shot himself dead early Monday morning, Anchorage police said.

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Michael Stith

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Stith, 50, was wanted on 14 felony counts in connection with the weekend robberies and a carjacking that police suspect were feeding a heroin habit. Officers following an informant's tip caught up with him at about 4 a.m. at a motor home parked in a lot at Providence Alaska Medical Center, police spokeswoman Anita Shell said.

He killed himself moments later, before police could talk to him, she said. His family got the news early Monday.

"I knew he wasn't going to give himself up, mostly because he'd just dug such a hole for himself," said his mother, Carol Stith. "I think he just got too far into the drugs."

Stith made news nearly 30 years ago when he shot a cop -- now deputy police chief Ross Plummer. The officer was investigating a report of a suspicious person at a store and tried to search Stith, who instead spun around, whipped out a pistol and shot Plummer first in the arm, then in the shoulder, with the .22-caliber round exiting his side, Shell said.

Plummer went down, and Stith put the gun to Plummer's head. He pulled the trigger, pumping a round through Plummer's hat.

"That hat had a hat band that deflected the bullet," Shell said. "It traveled just a miraculous journey before exiting the hat without injuring his head at all."

Stith served 10 years in federal prison for the shooting and a bank robbery conviction, his mother said. He didn't want to go back, and he cleaned up his life after his release, she said.

Aside from a misdemeanor assault conviction in 2000, he had no other criminal history in Alaska, according to court records.

Stith worked as a salesman for Eastside Carpet Co. for about 10 years until a few years back, when he left to form his own business, Flooring Solutions, said Ruth Coe, company office manager.

"We knew nothing of his past troubles. We're all in shock," Coe said Monday. "This just doesn't seem like him. I don't know what happened and don't even want to imagine; I'd rather remember him the way he was."

Last year, Stith went to Las Vegas to try his hand at the World Series of Poker, his mother said. He didn't win, but when he came back he brought a heroin addiction with him, she said. And feeding it cost money.

The first robbery took place Thursday night, when Stith allegedly robbed the Midtown Motel 6 at gunpoint, making off with about $370, according to a police affidavit filed in court.

Then, Saturday afternoon, police say, Stith robbed B and J Commercial outfitters, again pulling a revolver on employees and customers.

The employees, however, followed the robber out the front door and wrote down his license plate number, 1TNFUN, which police say was registered to Stith.

Police called Stith's cell phone, and he agreed to come in but never showed, according to the affidavit. The manhunt began, with officers trying to get a position on the cell phone and searching a hotel room he recently stayed in, the affidavit says.

They found his Ford pickup abandoned Sunday morning, hours before the next robbery at the Alaska USA Federal Credit Union inside the Carrs store at Minnesota Drive and Northern Lights Boulevard, police said.

After that, police said, Stith walked across the street to Minnesota Billiards and carjacked a 1996 Toyota Corolla.

The victim of the carjacking was not injured, police spokesman Lt. Paul Honeman said, and the car was recovered within hours nearby in Spenard.

Then officers got the tip that Stith was in an RV parked off Providence East Loop and East 40th Avenue. They set up surveillance, and about 4 a.m. Monday, the team saw Stith enter it, Shell said.

"That's when SWAT, some K-9 units and patrol officers converged on him," she said. "The others (inside) came out pretty much immediately."

The three people, unnamed by police, appeared to be friends of Stith's who were letting him stay in the home with them, Shell said. They are not facing charges.

As police began trying to contact Stith using bullhorns and a cell phone, a single shot rang out. Police found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Stith, who has two daughters with his ex-wife, was a loving father and a good man when he wasn't using narcotics, his mother said. His family was planning an intervention, she said.

"He had a lot of friends and family that loved him for who he was without the drugs," Carol Stith said.

"They affect everybody differently, and they ruin your brain. Those girls meant everything to him. They just keep saying, 'That's not our dad, that's not our dad.' "

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

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