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An ex-US Army soldier accused of fatally shooting his wife and covering up her death was stony-faced inside an Alaska courtroom as he was convicted of her murder.
Zarrius Hildabrand, 23, faces up to 99 years in prison after an Anchorage jury found him guilty over the August 2023 death of Alaska National Guard combat medic Saria Barney Hildabrand, 21, last Thursday, according to Court TV.
Hildabrand was acquitted of first-degree murder, but was convicted of second-degree murder and evidence tampering.
The killer looked straight at the judge and showed no emotion as the results of the jury deliberations were read out in the courthouse. He’s set to be sentenced on October 23.
Saria was shot dead in the early hours of Aug. 6, 2023, after she celebrated her 21st birthday – and during the two-week trial, Hildabrand’s lawyers tried to claim she may have taken her own life, or died accidentally, KTUU reported.
Before being convicted, Hildabrand took the stand and said he wanted to put the truth on record.
“Regardless of the outcome of the trial, I needed to tell the truth, I needed to get the weight off of three years of a lie,” he said.
During his testimony, he couldn’t remember much of what followed because he was still drunk from the night before.
He told jurors that he saw his wife dead in bed with a gunshot wound to the head after pulling back the covers.
Prosecutors claimed Hildabrand shot his wife after she spotted explicit messages that suggested he was cheating – just a year into their marriage. Saria took screenshots of the sexual conversations, so she had them as proof.
“The first thing I was afraid of was having no recollection of the night before, and just not knowing what happened,” Hildabrand said in court.
“I was afraid I was gonna lose my family; I was afraid that I was gonna go to jail for something that I had no recollection of.
“Just, there’s so many unknowns and I immediately assumed the worst.”
Hildabrand, who admitted to cheating on Saria while testifying, said he feared he would be disowned if he was sent to prison.
But his testimony unraveled as he appeared to admit to evidence tampering.
“The plan was to hide the body of my wife and then clean up the blood off the mattress and the surrounding area,” he said.
He admitted to buying hydrogen peroxide, which he said was used to clean up the “surrounding areas and mattress,” as well as deodorant.
“I just didn’t know what to feel… I just knew that the next day was going to be rough – because I had to hide my wife’s body and then clean up the surrounding area in our bedroom,” Hildabrand said, describing his emotions.
“I just knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Like mentally, I knew it was going to be difficult.”
Hildabrand admitted to buying a 96-gallon garbage can from Lowes – which he admitted he bought to help move his wife’s body.
“It felt so disrespectful and just disrespect, and just at that point, I’m starting to get a little angry at myself,” he told jurors after being asked how he felt at that moment.
Hildabrand dumped his wife’s body in a 15 to 20 foot storm drain – and she was found in water around two feet deep by emergency crews.
Hildabrand didn’t report his wife missing until around 30 hours after he had last seen her – and imitated her by sending messages from her phone to her work colleagues, saying she wouldn’t show up.
In one message, he claimed she was suffering from food poisoning.
He also put out desperate missing person appeals for his wife and joined the search – despite knowing she was dead.
Hildabrand deleted the screenshots from Saria’s phone because he was “embarrassed of them,” according to prosecutor Brittany Dunlop
Dunlop said Hildabrand “perpetuated a lie about her being missing.”
“He shot her in the head and then callously disposed of her body down a storm drain,” she said.
Dunlop claimed he “acted impulsively, and drunkenly, no doubt – but he did act intentionally.”
“Selective amnesia is a coward’s way out of a hard truth,” she said, ripping Hildabrand’s excuses.
Logan Calhoun, who served with Hildabrand in the Army, testified, “He [Hildabrand] got drunk. He was sloshed.”
Hildabrand joined the Army in September 2021 and was assigned to Alaska in March 2022, where he was with the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 11th Airborne Division at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
With Post wires.
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