Speaker 1: Anybody that has gotten to the point where he can
Speaker 1: kill all these people, including a small child. There's very
Speaker 1: little chance he'll give himself up. He's snapped, he's gone beyond,
Speaker 1: and there's no coming back from where he is now,
Speaker 1: no coming back.
Speaker 2: The hunt for one of Alaska's worst serial killers turned
Speaker 2: a quiet town into the wild wild West.
Speaker 1: In a situation like this, it's clear to us that
Speaker 1: this is not going to end well. If we see him,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to walk out and say, hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing. This is going to be a gunfight today.
Speaker 2: We're just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, for the haunting case
Speaker 2: of End of the Road, the hunt for Michael Silka.
Speaker 2: I'm slung glass and this is American homicide. Just to
Speaker 2: note that this episode contained some graphic content. Please take
Speaker 2: care while listening. On a spring day in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: Alaska State troopers stopped their patrol car outside a cabin
Speaker 2: that belonged to Michael Silka.
Speaker 1: I don't remember much of Silka's cabin, but it was
Speaker 1: junkie like most of the other ones over there.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Jim McCann was an Alaska State trooper.
Speaker 1: Wasn't some cute little log cabin in the woods. It
Speaker 1: was just a thrown together wood shack with a bunch
Speaker 1: of garbage laying all around it.
Speaker 2: Michael Silka's cabin sat in an area off the beaten
Speaker 2: path just outside of Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: There were these little cabins and people that had come
Speaker 1: to Alaska and didn't have much money were staying in
Speaker 1: those cabins.
Speaker 2: The troopers were doing a well bean check on Michael Silka. Earlier,
Speaker 2: they had received a report that he had been shot
Speaker 2: and killed by his neighbor, Roger Colt.
Speaker 1: That trooper went over and knocked on his cabin door.
Speaker 1: He didn't answer the door.
Speaker 2: That's when the troopers walked around Michael Solka's yard. Although
Speaker 2: it was a warm late April, there was still snow
Speaker 2: on the ground. Footprints in the snow led the troopers
Speaker 2: to a three by six foot snow mount.
Speaker 1: There were indeed blood spatters on that, but there's a
Speaker 1: moose hide hanging there, and so I don't know it
Speaker 1: could be blood from the moose.
Speaker 2: One trooper poked at the mound of snow and then
Speaker 2: grabbed a sample of the blood to send off for testing.
Speaker 2: Both troopers then walked back to Michael Silka's front door.
Speaker 1: They knocked again, and they heard someone moving around a
Speaker 1: little bit inside the house, and eventually a voice said,
Speaker 1: who's out there? He said, Alaska State trooper.
Speaker 2: It went quiet for a second before the voice from
Speaker 2: inside the cabin responded.
Speaker 1: And he said, how many of you are there?
Speaker 2: Both troopers looked at each other, puzzled. One of them
Speaker 2: yelled back, there's two of us. Can you open the
Speaker 2: door please. The cabin door slowly opened, and a man
Speaker 2: with dark hair and a scraggly beard peeked outside.
Speaker 1: And strangely enough, it's Michael Silka.
Speaker 2: Much to the surprise of the troopers, the man identified
Speaker 2: himself as twenty five year old Michael Silka, the person
Speaker 2: they were told had been murdered by a neighbor.
Speaker 1: We had no idea who Michael Silka was till all
Speaker 1: this happened.
Speaker 2: So Silka, who the troopers believed was killed by his neighbor,
Speaker 2: Roger Colpe, was alive and Roger Colpe was missing.
Speaker 1: Roger Coulp was a guy that disappeared a lot. He
Speaker 1: was a heavy drinker, and heavy drinkers around here just
Speaker 1: kind of wander around and during warm weather they lay
Speaker 1: down and sleep in the woods. They do all sorts
Speaker 1: of things.
Speaker 2: The belief was Roger Culp would eventually turn up. He
Speaker 2: always did.
Speaker 1: It's not really all that suspicious for a guy like
Speaker 1: Roger Culp to be gone from his for even a
Speaker 1: day or two, so there aren't a lot of alarms
Speaker 1: going on at this point.
Speaker 2: Before leaving Michael Soka's cabin, the two troopers had some questions.
Speaker 3: They found blood scared around Silka's cabin.
Speaker 2: Alaska State Trooper Steve Heckman, and he.
Speaker 3: Said, yeah, that's blood on the ground there. I was
Speaker 3: skinning a moose. I was skinning out a moose height
Speaker 3: or something in that. The blood was from that.
Speaker 2: Michael Soka had butchered a moose and said he washed
Speaker 2: the hikes for some of his hunter friends. Those hides
Speaker 2: are used to make jackets, gloves, and even rope.
Speaker 3: If you're in the bush, it would be a very
Speaker 3: common thing.
Speaker 2: The two troopers thanked Michael Soka for his time and
Speaker 2: drove away. Michael Soka waited until they were completely out
Speaker 2: of sight. Once they were gone, he closed the door.
Speaker 2: In a cabin a couple doors down, a woman was
Speaker 2: watching what she witnessed the previous day had left her
Speaker 2: paralyzed with fear.
Speaker 3: There was an exchange between Colp and Silka, and it
Speaker 3: was just very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: The previous day, that female neighbor of Michael Soka was
Speaker 2: outside chopping wood and talking with Roger Colp. The two
Speaker 2: noticed Michael Soka walked past three different times carrying a
Speaker 2: pile of guns to his car. On his final pass,
Speaker 2: Silka stopped where his two neighbors were chopping wood, grabbed
Speaker 2: a long stick, and angrily slammed it against the chopping block.
Speaker 2: He yelled, this is how you do it, and then
Speaker 2: walked back to his cabin. It was a strange and
Speaker 2: scary outburst.
Speaker 3: There was something about him that really bothered her.
Speaker 2: It also upset Roger Colp, who followed Silka to his cabin.
Speaker 2: A short time later. The woman chopping wood said she
Speaker 2: heard gunshots coming from Silka's cabin.
Speaker 3: Which is not an unusual thing to hear Banks Alaska.
Speaker 3: You've been in a suburb, you'll hear that sort of
Speaker 3: thing from time to time. So she didn't think too
Speaker 3: much of it, except that Culp. She never saw him again.
Speaker 2: When Roger Culp never turned up, that's when she guessed
Speaker 2: those gunshots coming from Michael Silka's cabin. Was Silka shooting
Speaker 2: and killing Colp. But she didn't have a phone and
Speaker 2: couldn't call the police, so she locked her door and
Speaker 2: claimed to be so scared that she couldn't leave her
Speaker 2: cabin for days. I can imagine that she felt that
Speaker 2: she was stuck out in the woods with a psychopath.
Speaker 3: She eventually reported what she had seen.
Speaker 2: It took her nine days to report what happened, and
Speaker 2: by the time she did, the troopers realized their first
Speaker 2: report was incorrect. It wasn't that Culp may have killed Silka,
Speaker 2: it was that Silka may have killed Colp.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of stuff that was going on,
Speaker 3: but they got all messed up.
Speaker 2: By the time the troopers returned to Michael Silka's cabin,
Speaker 2: he was gone.
Speaker 3: They never found Colp. They found blood scared around Silka's
Speaker 3: cabin that was later identified as being human.
Speaker 2: Blood, so that blood Silka said was from a moose
Speaker 2: was in fact human blood. By that point, troopers believed
Speaker 2: Michael Silka had murdered Roger Colp and left town.
Speaker 3: Something really bad has happened, and he obviously knew we
Speaker 3: were looking for him because he got out of Dodge.
Speaker 2: When Alaska State troopers dug into Michael Silka, theyan covered
Speaker 2: a ton. Keep in mind it's nineteen eighty four and
Speaker 2: the world was less connected.
Speaker 3: Silka had had a warrant out for his arrest in Illinois,
Speaker 3: and nobody knew about that. It wasn't in the national
Speaker 3: computer at that time.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty three, Michael Silka skipped a court hearing
Speaker 2: for a weapons violation back in Illinois. That led to
Speaker 2: a warrant being put out for the twenty five year
Speaker 2: old drifter.
Speaker 3: And there was a caution that he was considered to
Speaker 3: be dangerous.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about Michael Silka. Silka grew up in
Speaker 2: the suburbs of Chicago, but always dreamed of living outdoors.
Speaker 1: He was the sort of guy that didn't hang with others.
Speaker 1: He didn't do well with other people.
Speaker 2: That's Sergeant Jim mccannnon.
Speaker 1: Didn't have any close friends that I recall. Everyone thought
Speaker 1: him a bit odd.
Speaker 2: Chicago's Daily Harald newspaper reported that one former high school
Speaker 2: classmate called Silka a troubled kid who was obsessed with guns.
Speaker 2: One said he even went to school dressed like a hunter.
Speaker 2: Another said You could just picture this guy growing up
Speaker 2: to do something bad.
Speaker 1: Michael Silka. He fashioned himself to some sort of mountain man, know,
Speaker 1: some sort of guy that could go out and live
Speaker 1: on his own.
Speaker 2: After high school, Silka joined the army and was thrilled
Speaker 2: to be stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: His job was a helicopter mechanic. Some of the other
Speaker 1: soldiers that worked with him, they described Michael Silka as
Speaker 1: the guy that would always go off on his own.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't see him for hours or maybe even days
Speaker 1: if he could get away with it. He just take
Speaker 1: a knife and a few things and then go out
Speaker 1: into the woods and try and survive. And didn't get
Speaker 1: along very well with his fellow soldiers. They thought him
Speaker 1: rather strange.
Speaker 2: Silka became an expert shooter in the army, but a
Speaker 2: weapons incident led to his discharge. He then returned to
Speaker 2: Illinois and quickly got into trouble for carrying a rifle
Speaker 2: through town.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got a criminal record, but they're not
Speaker 1: really serious crimes, but they generally involved firearms.
Speaker 2: By Silka's twenty fifth birthday, he had been picked up
Speaker 2: up for a series of arrests for burglary, shoplifting, resisting arrest,
Speaker 2: and unlawful use of a weapon.
Speaker 1: Not that he used them against people, but that he
Speaker 1: always had a firearm of one sword or another in
Speaker 1: his possession near him.
Speaker 2: With court appearances pending at home, Soka left Chicago and
Speaker 2: drove north into Canada. That's where he was stopped by
Speaker 2: the police. They found his truck loaded with camping gear
Speaker 2: and firearms.
Speaker 1: They were interested in him enough that they took him
Speaker 1: to their local headquarters, interviewed him and photographed him, and
Speaker 1: then let him go. No one ever communicated that to us.
Speaker 2: Michael Silka then headed to Fairbanks, where miscommunication allowed him
Speaker 2: to slip out of the reach of the police, and
Speaker 2: the consequences would destroy an entire town. The oil boom
Speaker 2: brought the first wave of people to Fairbanks during the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, but there's also a completely different group of
Speaker 2: people that are attracted to the area.
Speaker 1: This is the end of the road. Basically, it's the
Speaker 1: farthest north everything.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Jim McCann was an Alaska State trooper stationed in Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of experience living here at the
Speaker 1: end of the road. You know that attracts some of
Speaker 1: the finest people and unfortunately, some of the worst. It's
Speaker 1: where some people come to take their last shot at life,
Speaker 1: or to live their dreams or their fantasies.
Speaker 2: Every spring, Locals and Fairbanks spot the newest crop of
Speaker 2: what they call end of the roads.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of bad people come to the
Speaker 1: end of the road here and commit their crimes.
Speaker 2: One such end of the roat was Michael Silka. After
Speaker 2: high school, Silka joined the Army. I was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska,
Speaker 2: which fit with his personality. Sandwiched in between his army stint,
Speaker 2: the twenty five year old racked up a handful of
Speaker 2: arrest in Illinois, mainly misdemeanor charges involving weapons.
Speaker 1: I got into a situation where he didn't show up
Speaker 1: for court there was a warrant issued for him.
Speaker 2: Instead, Silka drove up to Fairbanks, where he later was
Speaker 2: suspected in the disappearance of his neighbor, Roger Cole. To
Speaker 2: make matters even harder for police, Silka then disappeared and
Speaker 2: then on May eighteenth, nineteen eighty four, Sergeant mccannn responded
Speaker 2: to a disturbing.
Speaker 1: Call our clerical staff called me and said, Sergeant mccahn,
Speaker 1: there's something going on in Manly Hot Springs.
Speaker 2: Manly Hont Springs is a small mining town some one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty miles northwest of Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: What they told me it was that everyone that had
Speaker 1: gone down to the landing in Manly Hot Springs seems
Speaker 1: to have disappeared.
Speaker 2: At the time, only about seventy people lived there, and
Speaker 2: each spring, locals head to the boat landing on the
Speaker 2: Tananaw River to watch the ice break up.
Speaker 1: People just go down there to look, especially when you're
Speaker 1: living in a little place like Manly but not much
Speaker 1: else to look at. It's quite the sight to see,
Speaker 1: really when the ice goes out. But everybody that went
Speaker 1: down to look at the river seems to have disappeared.
Speaker 2: A woman reported that her husband and his friend went
Speaker 2: to the boat landing and never returned. A second person
Speaker 2: reported that a man, his pregnant wife, and their two
Speaker 2: year old son also went to the landing and didn't return.
Speaker 1: There was a whole family, a husband, a wife, and
Speaker 1: a two year old child.
Speaker 2: And then came a report that a third and fourth
Speaker 2: man were also missing. So for a town of seventy
Speaker 2: people to have seven people go missing. That's ten percent
Speaker 2: of the population.
Speaker 1: It was bizarre to think that that had happened. I
Speaker 1: took action at that point.
Speaker 2: Sergeant McCann flew out there by helicopter and began searching
Speaker 2: for clues. At the boat.
Speaker 1: Launch, I found one forty four magnum cartridge case, and
Speaker 1: I saw a number of dark spots on the ground
Speaker 1: in the dirt that I knew could be blood.
Speaker 2: A nearby tree and a boat parked at the launch
Speaker 2: were both splattered with blood. Along the river bank, troopers
Speaker 2: noticed drag marks and more blood.
Speaker 1: Clearly bodies had been brought up to the edge of
Speaker 1: the river and pushed off into the river.
Speaker 2: A handful of cars were parked at the boat launch,
Speaker 2: including a beat up Dodge Sedan with an Illinois license
Speaker 2: plate that belonged to Michael Silka.
Speaker 1: And when I saw Michael Silk's license plate there, it
Speaker 1: was certainly alarming. We did some looking at Silka's car,
Speaker 1: and we saw a lot of his provisions, some reloading
Speaker 1: equipment and that sort of thing. It concerned me enough
Speaker 1: that I thought he's going to come back down that
Speaker 1: river to get his provisions.
Speaker 2: Sergeant McCann and his team spent the night waiting and
Speaker 2: hoping Michael Silka and the seven missing people would return.
Speaker 1: I have no facts at that point to tell me
Speaker 1: that these people have been murdered, but I've been to
Speaker 1: these rodeos before. We know what happened. Now it's really
Speaker 1: confirming that this guy named Michael Silka killed everyone that
Speaker 1: came down to that landing.
Speaker 2: The following more more investigators join the search. Here's Alaska
Speaker 2: State Trooper Steve Heckman.
Speaker 3: It was a horrible situation, and the fact that there
Speaker 3: were a little kid and a woman involved in it
Speaker 3: made it even worse. In my mind, you have to
Speaker 3: say to yourself, who does something like this? You know,
Speaker 3: there's no motive that would make any sense whatsoever to me,
Speaker 3: at least personally. I could never find a motive in
Speaker 3: something like that that I would care to even try
Speaker 3: to understand.
Speaker 2: Trooper Heckman joined a team of divers that comb the
Speaker 2: dangerous Tananall River.
Speaker 3: I knew the current was going to be strong, which
Speaker 3: it was. I knew the visibility would probably be zero,
Speaker 3: which it was.
Speaker 2: The glacier fed tanan All River was nearly a mile
Speaker 2: wide and so full of silt that it could easily
Speaker 2: drag you underwater.
Speaker 3: You can be the world's best swimmer, but unless you
Speaker 3: have a floatation device on or something, you're going to
Speaker 3: go under, you're going to go under fast.
Speaker 2: If these seven people were disposed of in the river,
Speaker 2: he knew the odds of finding their bodies were slim
Speaker 2: to none.
Speaker 3: We were hopeful, but our expectations weren't great. Even one
Speaker 3: would have been a victory for us, But there again,
Speaker 3: we didn't find a thing.
Speaker 1: You hope that these people are going to show up
Speaker 1: someplace else, that they got on a boat and went
Speaker 1: down river, But I didn't think so.
Speaker 2: The following morning, Sergeant Jim McCann received his first lead.
Speaker 1: I had received information that Selka had or may have
Speaker 1: had a silver canoe, a silver grumm and canoe.
Speaker 2: Those sleek canoes were popular in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 2: and the easiest way for troopers to find that canoe
Speaker 2: was by air.
Speaker 1: I gave instructions to the pilot what we're looking for.
Speaker 1: That this guy, Michael Selka, may have murdered all these
Speaker 1: people could be on the river in a silver grumm
Speaker 1: and canoe. So when I got undo the helicopter, I
Speaker 1: sat in the back with my sixteen machine gun just
Speaker 1: in case.
Speaker 2: Sergeant McCann and two Special Emergency Reaction Teams took to
Speaker 2: the sky and a pair of helicopters in search of Silka.
Speaker 1: As the leader of the Special Emergency Reaction Team our
Speaker 1: swap team, I made it very clear to our members
Speaker 1: that this isn't Vietnam. We're not flying around in helicopters
Speaker 1: seeing stuff and shooting were law enforcement. We'll only return
Speaker 1: fire if we were fired upon.
Speaker 2: From the sky. The two teams very quickly spotted a campsite.
Speaker 1: A couple of our fishing wildlife pilots reported seeing a tent,
Speaker 1: a man standing outside the tent, and a silver grumm
Speaker 1: and canoe beached right near the camp.
Speaker 2: The helicopter found a place to land, and three troopers
Speaker 2: made their way through the thick forests to the surrounding campsite.
Speaker 2: With their guns drawn, they shouted to whoever was inside
Speaker 2: the tent to show themselves. To their surprise, two men emerged.
Speaker 1: There are two bear hunters, and they're not Michael Filke.
Speaker 2: Before the troopers and two bear hunters could catch their
Speaker 2: collective breath, another call.
Speaker 1: Came in almost simultaneously. Another trooper spotted a silver grumbing
Speaker 1: canoe with a single individual going upriver.
Speaker 2: With their description from this call, it had to be Silka.
Speaker 1: In a situation like this, it's clear to us that
Speaker 1: this is not going to end well. The chances of
Speaker 1: apprehending Michael Filke were slim to none. Now, anybody that
Speaker 1: has come to the end of the road and and
Speaker 1: then gotten to the point where he can kill all
Speaker 1: these people, including a small child, there's very little chance
Speaker 1: he'll give himself up, that he'll allow us to apprehend
Speaker 1: him to take him into custody. This is going to
Speaker 1: be a gunfight, and we hope that it only ends
Speaker 1: poorly for Silka, not for us.
Speaker 2: On a spring day in nineteen eighty four, Sergeant Jim
Speaker 2: mccannn got a call that something was happening in the
Speaker 2: small town of Manly Hot Springs, Alaska. Seven people had
Speaker 2: disappeared near a boat landing in town. None of them returned.
Speaker 2: Part at the boat landing was a car belonging to
Speaker 2: Michael Silka, who had already been on Sergeant Jim McCann's radar.
Speaker 1: So at this point, clearly we can assume that Michael
Speaker 1: Zilka is it's not just a murderer, but he's a
Speaker 1: mass murderer.
Speaker 2: They also suspected Silka killed his neighbor, Roger Colp, who
Speaker 2: was last seen going into Silka's cabin three weeks earlier.
Speaker 1: We don't know that we'd never found Roger Colpe's body,
Speaker 1: but it's logical that he would have done that and
Speaker 1: probably took him right across the road and dumped him
Speaker 1: in the Tanana River.
Speaker 2: With Roger Colp and seven others also presumed to be dead,
Speaker 2: two helicopters filled with specially trained teams of Alaska State
Speaker 2: Troopers went to apprehend Michael Silka.
Speaker 1: We have a not only a murderer, but somebody who
Speaker 1: is has made his decisions. He is committed to going
Speaker 1: out the hard way. He snapped. He's gone beyond and
Speaker 1: there's no coming back from where he is now, no
Speaker 1: coming back.
Speaker 2: Two sets of helicopters closed in on a person believed
Speaker 2: to be Michael Silka. He was spotted in an aluminum
Speaker 2: canoe about twenty five miles away.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine he's going to throw his hands up
Speaker 1: and say I give up.
Speaker 2: Silka's boat encountered a down tree across the river that
Speaker 2: prevented him from passing, so he docked his boat alongside
Speaker 2: that tree.
Speaker 4: We see somebody in a boat who turns out to
Speaker 4: be Michael Silka.
Speaker 2: Lieutenant John Myers was on the helicopter with Sergeant McCann.
Speaker 4: We had heard the stories about how good he could shoot,
Speaker 4: so we know we're probably looking for a well armed,
Speaker 4: good shooting murderer who had no conscience.
Speaker 2: With both helicopters hovering, Michael Silka ducked out of sight
Speaker 2: between three birch trees.
Speaker 4: The pilot just kind of swooped down whether the people
Speaker 4: in helicopter could get a better look, and then a
Speaker 4: firefight broke out.
Speaker 2: Within seconds, bullets were flying in each direction.
Speaker 4: We could see that Michael Silka was shooting. We knew
Speaker 4: that our people were shooting. In fact, we could see
Speaker 4: bullets splashing around him.
Speaker 2: But there was a problem.
Speaker 4: Imagine yourself in any kind of a situation where you
Speaker 4: have the knowledge, the equipment, the training to do something
Speaker 4: really important and you can't do it.
Speaker 3: That's where I was.
Speaker 2: This had to be chaotic and the chances of friendly
Speaker 2: fire were high.
Speaker 4: Now I'm standing there with a fully automatic rifle in
Speaker 4: my hands, and I mean even if I wanted to
Speaker 4: and tried, I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: The two were left to helplessly watch what unfolded below them.
Speaker 1: Silka was acting furtively, looking up at them and acting
Speaker 1: very agitated, concerned. He was doing his best to escape.
Speaker 2: On the riverbank below, Silka was trying to conceal himself
Speaker 2: from the trooper's vision.
Speaker 1: Then I heard what is perhaps one of the worst
Speaker 1: things I ever heard. Was our pilot going ten seventy
Speaker 1: nine ast. That means a dead trooper.
Speaker 2: A trooper in the other helicopter was hit by one
Speaker 2: of Michael Silka's bullets.
Speaker 1: My friend Droy Duncan was murdered, his head was gone,
Speaker 1: and the helicopter itself was blood spattered and bone fragments,
Speaker 1: and it was a horrible scene. My partner and I
Speaker 1: were just shocked, I mean totally shocked.
Speaker 2: With one trooper dead. That helicopter then left the scene
Speaker 2: and raced to a local hospital. That left Sergeant McCann
Speaker 2: and Lieutenant Myers to find Michael Silka.
Speaker 4: We couldn't see Silka anymore, so in the meantime, we're
Speaker 4: circling around it, and now we didn't know if Silka
Speaker 4: was dead, wounded, or ran, but we knew he was.
Speaker 4: He probably was hit and then we located him.
Speaker 1: He was in the water.
Speaker 2: Michael Silka was down in a fierce gunfight that had
Speaker 2: lasted less than a minute. Trooper shot and killed Michael
Speaker 2: Silka just seconds after he killed one of their own,
Speaker 2: Trooper Troy Duncan.
Speaker 4: I mean, Troy was a remarkable person. Everybody liked him,
Speaker 4: everybody trusted him. Everybody was hurt by his death. But
Speaker 4: the fact is everybody did what they were supposed to
Speaker 4: do and we lost one and a really good person,
Speaker 4: good man.
Speaker 2: The thirty four year old ex marine had a wife
Speaker 2: and two children. His remains were flown to Texas, where
Speaker 2: he was buried next to his mother. Here's Sergeant Jim
Speaker 2: mccannon again.
Speaker 1: I can still see Troy Duncan's face, his smile. Just
Speaker 1: a big old X marine, you know, and a likable guy,
Speaker 1: good trooper murdered. People don't understand what law enforcement officers
Speaker 1: go through, what they carry with them for the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives.
Speaker 2: After a long investigation, troopers concluded what happened at the
Speaker 2: docks in May of nineteen eighty four, and the details
Speaker 2: are really unbelievable. Michael Silka shot and killed a first
Speaker 2: victim at the boat launch. He then threw the victim's
Speaker 2: body into the river. From there he killed everyone else
Speaker 2: in sight. His motive baffled Lieutenant Myers.
Speaker 4: What makes you decide to kill everybody to see? How
Speaker 4: do you get that way? I don't have a clue.
Speaker 4: If really, I don't know. He was committed to dying.
Speaker 1: He was committed to killing as many troopers as he
Speaker 1: could before he went out, and he fired three shots rapidly,
Speaker 1: you know, one taking Trooper Troy Duncan right in the
Speaker 1: middle of his face. These things certainly stayed with me.
Speaker 2: Troopers believe Michael Silka was able to fire off three
Speaker 2: shots before he was killed, and.
Speaker 1: The other two when I examined the helicopter later, they
Speaker 1: were right next to the hydraulic lines that kept that
Speaker 1: helicopter in the air, And some would say that he
Speaker 1: was trying to take down the helicopter.
Speaker 2: The troopers believe Michael Silka snapped. Over the next few weeks,
Speaker 2: planes flew back and forth over the river in search
Speaker 2: of the victims.
Speaker 1: The Tanana River has a tendency to swallow up bodies.
Speaker 1: It's a dangerous river. And these people could be any place.
Speaker 2: A month later, only four of the seven bodies were recovered,
Speaker 2: including one body that turned up seventy five miles downstream.
Speaker 2: None of the other victims' bodies were ever found, including
Speaker 2: Roger Colp. For those in Manly Hot Springs, it's not.
Speaker 1: The peaceful little place that it used to be, you
Speaker 1: know before this. I mean I could drive into Manly
Speaker 1: and I just people wave at j It's not the same.
Speaker 1: These things have a way to resurface in your mind,
Speaker 1: that memory of these things never dies.
Speaker 2: Further investigation led troopers to next Silka to a murder
Speaker 2: in North Dakota, a pair of killings in Canada, and
Speaker 2: the murder of two others in Manly Hot Springs. With
Speaker 2: no known motive, Michael Silka left behind a million unanswered
Speaker 2: questions with no one to give them answers. The grieving
Speaker 2: small town took out their frustration on a physical representation
Speaker 2: of Selka.
Speaker 3: The car probably should have been impounded, but in one respect,
Speaker 3: maybe it was a good thing. We left it there.
Speaker 3: They beat it with hammers, they set it on fire,
Speaker 3: and then they drove over it with a bulldozer, and
Speaker 3: then they pushed it in the river. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think that was kind of their way to show some
Speaker 3: finality to the whole thing. That was something that they
Speaker 3: just felt they needed to do. Gave them some way
Speaker 3: to show their emotions.
Speaker 2: Next time on American Homicide, just days after our college
Speaker 2: student moves into her new apartment, she disappears. I'm Sloane Glass.
Speaker 2: We'll be in Angriagje, Alaska for our final two episodes
Speaker 2: this season of American Homicide. You can contact the American
Speaker 2: Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: American Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloane Glass
Speaker 2: and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
Speaker 2: Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
Speaker 2: is executive produced by Nancy Glass, and the series is
Speaker 2: also written and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing
Speaker 2: by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is
Speaker 2: Kristin Melcurie. Our ihearteam is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimechack.
Speaker 2: Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aarruca. American Homicide
Speaker 2: Theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Neiser Music
Speaker 2: Library provided by my Music. Follow American Homicide on Apple
Speaker 2: Podcasts and please rate and review American Homicide. Your five
Speaker 2: star review goes a long way towards helping others find
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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts