The Murder of Saria Hildabrand: What Zarius Hildabrand Did After the Gunshot
On the night of August 5, 2023, 21-year-old Army soldier Saria Hildabrand spent the evening celebrating her husband Zarius's 21st birthday. They went to Dave and Buster's with friends, moved to the bars downtown, and came home to their apartment on Mockingbird Drive in Anchorage, Alaska, around 2:00 AM.
Within minutes of getting home, Saria discovered that Zarius had been cheating on her. She went through his Snapchat and Instagram and found explicit conversations with multiple women — conversations he had been hiding for months. The last recorded activity on her phone was at 2:24 AM. At 2:46 AM, a neighbor called 911 to report a single gunshot.
Zarius Hildabrand then spent the next several days pretending his wife was still alive. He texted her coworkers from her phone. He told her friends she had left for work without her phone. He organized a search party and stood alongside her grieving family as they searched Anchorage for her. He knew exactly where she was the entire time.
Saria Hildabrand was the oldest of six children, raised in Idaho and Utah. She was close with her mother Meredith, who she called every single day. She joined the Utah Army National Guard to help pay for college and eventually transferred to the Alaska Army National Guard, where she was serving as a combat medic. She was 21 years old and had her whole life ahead of her.
On June 25, 2026, a jury found Zarius Hildabrand guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence. He faces between 15 and 99 years in prison under Alaska law. Sentencing is scheduled for October 2026.
