ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Court TV) — A U.S. soldier is standing trial on charges he killed his wife and then tried to report her missing to cover his tracks.
Zarrius Hildabrand appears in court for a pretrial hearing. (Dev Hardikar/Alaska Public Media)
Zarrius Hildabrand, 24, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in the death of his wife, Saria Barney. Both the defendant and the victim served in the military; Hildabrand was a soldier in the U.S. Army assigned to work in Alaska, while Barney was in the Alaska Army National Guard, Law&Crime previously reported.
Hildabrand called the Anchorage Police Department to report that Bradley was missing on Aug. 7, 2023, but investigators said his story never added up. He told officers that after a late night out partying with friends, Barney decided to walk to work. Her coworkers said she never arrived. It took 36 hours for Hildabrand to notify the police that his wife was missing; he told officers he attempted to find her by himself at first.
When officers went into Hildabrand’s home to search for evidence, they noticed the only bed in the home had only a mattress pad on it. When detectives asked to look under the pad and lift the mattress, “He said we couldn’t search under the bed because there were ’embarrassing’ items underneath,” an affidavit reviewed by Court TV said. “He finally told us it was stuff used for sex. We asked him if he would move those items while we looked away, and again he said we couldn’t look under the bed.”
Detectives returned with a search warrant and lifted the mattress, which they described as “saturated by human blood. There was so much blood on the mattress that the blood soaked into the carpet and into the wood frame.” Inside the house, officers located two handguns; one was fully loaded while the other was missing one bullet from its magazine.
When officers used a drone to search the area around Hildabrand’s apartment complex, they noticed what appeared to be a pillow near a drainpipe. Beneath the pillow, investigators recovered the victim’s remains. She had an apparent gunshot wound to her left temple.
Investigators have pointed to additional circumstantial evidence in the case, including several purchases Hildabrand is accused of making at Fred Meyer and Lowe’s on Aug. 6, including a mattress cover, hydrogen peroxide and a 96-gallon trash bin.
Jury selection began on Monday; opening statements could happen as early as Wednesday.
