A 24-year-old U.S. Army soldier was arrested Friday on murder charges after Fairbanks officers found a man with an execution-style gunshot wound in an apartment, police said.
Adayus Robertson is facing charges of first-degree murder and evidence tampering as well as violating probation for two prior open criminal cases. He had his first court appearance Sunday.
Robertson is an active-duty soldier stationed at Fort Wainwright with the 11th Airborne Division.
A judge on Sunday set his bail at $2.5 million.
Police said their investigation began just before 10 a.m. Friday with a report of shots fired at an apartment on 27th Avenue. Officers found 37-year-old Fairbanks resident Joseph Casas with a gunshot wound to the head. Casas was pronounced dead at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, they said.
Robertson and Casas knew each other, police said.
Robertson was on pretrial ankle monitoring associated with a felony assault case filed last month.
A detective requested GPS tracking data that showed him at the scene of the shooting and then walking away, according to a probable cause statement filed in the murder case. Officers found Robertson with two other people at the Big Dipper Ice Arena.
Robertson had a handgun magazine on him, the statement said. An officer following tracks in the snow recovered a .40 caliber Glock from a trash bin near the scene of the shooting, it said. Witnesses told police the two men were in the same room when the shot was heard.
Police learned the gun had been purchased by a relative of Robertson, according to the statement.
Robertson, interviewed by the detective, said Casas had been "bouncing around and saying a lot of crazy stuff" but then asked to speak to an attorney and declined to provide any other information about what happened Friday, the statement said.
One of the witnesses told a military criminal investigation agent that Casas "didn't deserve what happened to him," the statement said. The witness agreed when asked if the shooting was an execution, it said.
Robertson is hiring an attorney, according to a filing in the case.
He was facing prior charges of assault and escape at the time of Friday's shooting.
The felony assault charge stems from accusations Robertson pistol-whipped a woman in January, according to a criminal complaint filed in that case. He was arrested on March 19.
He paid a $10,000 cash bail in that case and was released from custody several days later, court records show.
The escape case was filed on March 27 after authorities said Robertson left house arrest on base, violating the conditions of release in the assault case.
A judge on April 1 agreed to allow Robertson to leave base, modifying the conditions of his release to remove house arrest.
Robertson, whose rank is private first class, is a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Specialist who has been with the 11th Airborne since arriving at Fort Wainwright in October 2023, according to information provided by division spokesperson Lt. Col. Leah Ganoni.
Fort Wainwright is Robertson's first and only duty station since enlisting in the Army in 2023, Ganoni said.
© 2025 the Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage, Alaska). Visit www.adn.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
