Murder charged in Trapper Creek shooting TRAPPER CREEK: Husband died in driveway, wife was wounded.

A Trapper Creek man whom neighbors say had been causing trouble for months in the remote community was charged Sunday with shooting a couple who lived near him, killing the husband.

Alaska State Troopers arrested Jeremy Christopher Nelson, 37, and charged him with first-degree murder, attempted murder and first-degree assault in the killing of Robert Carey, 66, and the wounding of his wife, Verna, 58.

Troopers released few details. Neighbors and family talked in interviews with the Daily News about what happened Saturday and confrontations during the months before that.

The wooded Trapper Creek neighborhood, off Mile 115 of the Parks Highway, is sparsely populated, residents say. People live in cabins and trailer homes. Many of the homes are off the power grid. People rely on generators and wood stoves.

On Saturday night, the power suddenly went off at the Carey cabin but the generator was still running, according to what Verna Carey later told a daughter, Wasilla resident Hannah Ehrman. The Careys had been sitting at the table. They went outside to investigate, thinking maybe an animal had pulled the cord loose.

They saw a man wearing camouflage and snowshoes, holding a handgun and a long gun, Ehrman said her mother told her.

It was Nelson, whom they didn't know personally but had been warned by other neighbors to steer clear of, Ehrman said. Other neighbors said he acted strangely and they suspect he has mental health issues or drug problems or both. He intimidated people with his guns, shot a hole in one neighbor's roof, and killed numerous bears and moose since moving in last summer, said one nearby neighbor, Ross Nold, whose roof was shot.

The Careys had lived in Trapper Creek a few years. They stuck to themselves, tending their animals -- goats, chickens and a dog named Clever. They had been married about 20 years. They gardened in the summer. They were strong Christians and liked their quiet life, Ehrman said. Bob Carey was her stepdad.

He was on disability, blind in one eye with a recently broken hand that was supposed to be set in a cast today, she said. Long ago, he worked as a driver of big rigs and tow trucks.

From what her mother told her, Bob Carey told the man to get off the property. The man responded that he was looking for somebody. They went back and forth that way a couple of times.

The man raised up his long gun and the tip was so close it could almost touch Bob, Ehrman said. The man fired and her stepfather fell down, she said.

Verna Carey ran to the cabin and made it inside the door. She turned to hide around the corner and another shot went off, grazing her right shoulder. She fell into the woodbox and stayed still so he would think she was dead, Ehrman said.

There was no time for the couple to act, to protect themselves, their daughter said.

"It was just seconds of being outside before her husband was killed and she was laying on the woodpile," Ehrman said.

Verna Carey found her cell phone and around 10:25 p.m. called 911. Then she went into the bedroom and lay in the dark on the floor, waiting.

"She felt safest there, that if he did come in and start shooting, maybe he would miss her," the daughter said.

It took troopers as long as a couple of hours to get to her mother, Ehrman said. The first she knew about what happened was at 12:46 a.m., when her mother called her from the ambulance.

Trooper spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said in an e-mail Sunday evening that she couldn't confirm the time frame, but that when troopers arrived, they didn't know where the shooter was. They had to secure the scene.

Troopers found Bob Carey dead in the driveway. Verna Carey was in the cabin. Troopers got her to medics waiting nearby and an ambulance took her to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

Verna Carey is already out of the hospital, back at the cabin with an adult grandson, trying to absorb what happened.

Compounding the tragedy for the family: The nearby cabin of Verna Carey's son, who is deaf, burned to the ground just days ago. Freddy Brockman woke up because one of his feet was on fire, Ehrman said. He ran to his mother's cabin and has been staying temporarily with Ehrman.

On Saturday night, Nold said, he had heard someone walking around on snowshoes. He went to check it out. He heard Bob Carey yelling at someone to get out of there. He heard a gunshot and an echo and Verna Carey say "Oh my God."

He said he suspected that Nelson had holed up at a friend's place nearby, off Bradley Road, and that he told troopers where they could find him. At some point Nelson got in the back of his girlfriend's truck, which was parked at the friend's place, Nold said. The standoff with troopers took hours, he said.

Troopers say they used their helicopter, Helo 1, to search for the suspect. A Special Emergency Reaction Team that includes troopers and a Wasilla police officer was deployed. SERT is a tactical team called out for situations with a higher-than-normal degree of danger, according to troopers.

Troopers from Palmer and Talkeetna also responded. So did those with the Alaska Bureau of Highway Patrol, as well as a Palmer police officer with the bureau.

The suspect was taken into custody around 4:50 a.m. Sunday.

Residents of the area say they had been troubled by Nelson for months.

"He's managed to either threaten or pull guns on just about everybody," Nold said. Neighbors suspected him of poaching.

Nold said he saw a lot of dead moose around Nelson's place and showed troopers some on Sunday as they investigated the Saturday night attack. He didn't report Nelson for poaching because he didn't think that Nelson would go to jail for it and figured things would just get worse.

Another resident of the area, retired Kodiak fisherman Stan Olson, said he got home one night a couple of months ago and saw footprints in the snow, leading him to a man sleeping on his property he later found out was Nelson. He rousted the man with his foot. The man said he had had a bad week. His best friend had killed himself. His snowmachine had broken down. He just needed to rest.

Olson said he told him he couldn't rest there but agreed to give him a ride. When the man stood up, Olson said, he saw a gun. He took it away for the ride.

Investigators are trying to determine a motive for what happened Saturday night, Ipsen said. Troopers' Alaska Bureau of Investigation is handling the investigation.

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