Background: Alpine Apartments of Weidner Apartment Homes in Anchorage, Alaska (KTUU/YouTube). Inset left: Josiah Goecker (Janssen Funeral Homes). Inset right: Jesse Jones (KTUU/YouTube).
A man who killed a leasing manager at an Alaska apartment complex has learned how he will likely spend the rest of his life.
In what was described as a packed courtroom, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson sentenced 28-year-old Jesse Jones on July 11 to 77 years in prison for the murder of 34-year-old Josiah Goecker and the assault of Rosemarie Ortiz, who was 33 years old at the time of the 2023 attack.
On Oct. 23, 2023, Jones walked into the leasing office at Alpine Apartments of Weidner Apartment Homes in Anchorage and “confronted” Goecker and Ortiz about a non-renewal notice that had been placed on his door, the Alaska Department of Law announced. Jones lived at the apartment complex with his girlfriend.
“Within seconds Jones produced a handgun,” the state”s press release continued, saying Jones and Goecker had a “brief struggle” but that Goecker “retreated with his hands up.” It was then that Jones shot Goecker at least seven times in front of Ortiz.
Jones is said to have fled from the leasing office and disposed of the gun – an action for which he was later charged and convicted of tampering with evidence. After fleeing the area, Jones “spent the bulk of his time high on methamphetamine,” the state said, before he was apprehended about three days later.
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Jones was convicted in February on the murder, assault, and tampering with evidence charges. Jones confessed to the murder, the Alaska Department of Law said, but, during his trial, claimed he acted in the “heat of passion” when he shot Goecker. His lawyers reportedly called for the murder charge to be reduced to manslaughter, arguing the shooting was in self-defense, though the jury rejected this argument.
Before sentencing Jones, Peterson – the judge – heard from nine Goecker family members about how the murder has affected them. Goecker was survived by his pregnant wife, his daughter, his unborn daughter, his parents, and nine siblings, according to his obituary.
His brother, Jamin Goecker, said his murder “deprived his wife of a husband and his two little girls to a father.”
“His youngest daughter was born a few months after his death and so she will never meet her father in this life,” he wrote in a text message to local outlet KTUU. “His loss is deeply felt by all of us.”
Jones faced more than 99 years in prison. Still, the 77 years he was handed all but ensure he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. In the courtroom over which he was presiding, the judge dismissed any suggestion the killing was an “honest mistake, or snap decision.”
The suspect-turned-convict had several opportunities to “change the course of the day” but instead made repeated choices that ended Goecker’s life, Peterson said. Goecker, on the other hand, “demonstrated compassion and peacefulness” in his approach to Jones, with the judge detailing how the murder victim “put his hands up, he backed off and gave the defendant the opportunity to walk away.”
Jones was irate over the non-renewal notice, asking the apartment building employees, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by KTUU, “are you really kicking me and my pregnant girlfriend out onto the streets[?]”
Peterson also acknowledged how Jones’ prior criminal history demonstrated “disproportionate” and “unbalanced and violent responses” to “perceived slights” – finding that he needed to confine Jones to “protect the public and to ensure that Jones does not hurt or kill somebody in the future.”
Goecker is remembered by loved ones as a hero for the actions he took before he was murdered. His obituary says he “gave his life to protect a colleague and that his “selfless act of heroism surprised no one who knew him in his 34 years of life.”
