Tips from the public led Anchorage police to arrest a man accused of fatally shooting a young couple during a Christmas Eve home-invasion robbery, police said Tuesday morning.
Police took Lamarkus Jayquann Mann, 22, and one other person into custody around 8 a.m. Tuesday at the Lakeshore Inn on Lakeshore Drive in Spenard, the Anchorage Police Department said in a statement. Information on Mann's whereabouts came from "several anonymous tips" to the Anchorage Crime Stoppers program, police said.
"Several police officers, along with APD SWAT surrounded the motel room Mann was believed to be in," police wrote. "Police ordered the occupants out of the motel; Mann emerged from the room and surrendered to police without incident."
Lt. John McKinnon said during a Tuesday press conference at APD that Mann's arrest at the hotel took around 20 minutes.
The person who was in the room with Mann gave information to police and is not being charged with a crime, McKinnon said.
Lakeshore employees declined to speak to a reporter Tuesday, but one employee of a nearby business said police were already stationed in the Spenard neighborhood when he showed up for work around 5 a.m.
By the time police got Mann out of the Lakeshore, there were squad cars on either side of the building, as well as dogs and officers with their guns drawn — including one with a rifle, said a guest staying at another hotel across the street.
Police have described Mann as the suspected shooter in the deaths of Danielle and Christopher Brooks during a targeted robbery at their home on the 4100 block of Peterkin Avenue at about 4 p.m. Saturday. Danielle Brooks died at the scene, and Christopher Brooks died shortly after the shooting.
McKinnon described the deaths as an "execution."
"The Brookses did not have weapons that they used. They were fighting for their lives," McKinnon said. "Mrs. Brooks was killed (in the home). Mr. Brooks attempted to exit the residence and, as he was exiting, he was shot multiple times. He ultimately came to rest in the driveway area of the residence."
The shooting was caught on a neighbor's surveillance system, which also recorded the suspects fleeing in a vehicle, McKinnon said.
Arrest warrants were issued for Mann and two suspected accomplices, 20-year-old Jaylyn Deonte Franklin and 19-year-old DeAnthony Malik Harris, on charges of murder, robbery and burglary; Franklin was also charged with tampering with physical evidence. Prior to Mann's arrest, police had arrested Franklin and questioned Harris at a local hospital, after he was treated for a gunshot wound to his leg.
McKinnon said he did not have an update on Harris' condition, citing medical privacy laws.
An online inmate-tracker lists Harris in Alaska Department of Corrections custody but does not give a specific location. An official at Anchorage Correctional Complex said Harris is not housed there.
The three suspects are either friends or simply acquaintances who all attended Anchorage schools, McKinnon said. Police are trying to piece together the connection between the suspects and the victims. The Brookses did not "provoke the encounter," he said.
Charging documents say Mann's alleged accomplices told police Mann targeted the Brookses over drugs and money; McKinnon said he did not know what drugs the suspects were looking for or whether officers recovered drugs from the scene.
Police believe there may be a fourth suspect, but McKinnon declined to say how that person might be involved with the murders.
The community was instrumental in helping with the case; multiple tipsters called Crime Stoppers and provided information, McKinnon said.
It is important Anchorage residents "stand together and take the community back," he said, referring the city's streak of violence over the holiday weekend and throughout the year.
Reporter Nathaniel Herz contributed to this report.