Anchorage woman seeks justice for boyfriend killed outside their home

Maryann Schneider stood in the living room of her trailer home in Anchorage on Wednesday, surrounded by boxes filled with clothes, games and toys. She said she needs to move — now.

“Most of this is just me trying to clear out because I can’t look out there without seeing where he died,” she said, gazing at the kitchen window facing the street.

Schneider’s boyfriend, 23-year-old Brad Robert, was shot and killed outside their home at the Kathy Estates Trailer Court during a fight between three other people at about 1 a.m. on Nov. 11. Schneider said she saw it all happen, and that Robert was just trying to help.

Police have arrested and charged 29-year-old Anthony Tinker III in Robert’s murder. Police say his death is the 24th homicide in Anchorage this year. In separate incidents, two children have been fatally shot since then.

Back at the home they once shared in the Spenard area, Schneider is struggling with the sudden loss. She’s sorting through memories and said she’s trying to figure out what’s next.

On a recent afternoon, she flipped through a thick stack of photos. They were all of Robert. Her favorite: an image of him holding his young son from a previous relationship.

“Their son actually came out as a stillborn, and it was Brad singing to him that made him take his first breath again,” she said. “Either he stopped breathing or he came out as a stillborn, but he momentarily died after he was born – and Brad’s the reason that he’s living.”

The boy’s mother lives nearby, she said.

“She heard the shots that night. She didn’t realize it was him,” Schneider said. “She can’t look over this way. She also didn’t feel safe in her own home after the fact. So now she has to raise a little boy who won’t remember his dad. He’s only 2.”

Schneider said she and Robert had been together since 2021. Both of them had children from previous relationships. They met on a dating app.

Schneider said Robert delivered DoorDash orders in Anchorage. She said he had tried to join the Army, because people he looked up to as father figures were veterans. He was rejected but had a head for strategy. He bonded with Schneider’s 7-year-old son over video games, especially Subnautica.

She described Robert as “one of those people where he didn’t feel that he fit in anywhere, and he didn’t realize how much of an impact he made on people’s lives.” 

On the night Robert was shot, Schneider said they heard a childish voice outside their trailer home. When they opened the front door, they could see that a woman was in distress, being yanked back by another woman with a man standing nearby.

Schneider said she and Robert didn’t know the man was armed, with what police say was a rifle later seen in surveillance video.

“Brad had stepped outside and was like, it was something along the lines of, ‘This looks like assault to me,’ and they didn’t pay him any attention,” she said. “So we walked down the steps toward them. And he tried separating the two girls and that’s when the other one started yelling, ‘Don’t touch her, that’s my daughter, let go of my daughter,’ something like that. She said that about three times, and that is when the guy shot him.”

The women and Tinker ran away, according to police, and headed back to a home nearby. Schneider said she ran outside barefoot in the snow, calling 911. She said police dispatchers asked her to give Robert CPR, but he’d been shot in the head and was barely breathing.

“There was no life in his eyes,” she said. “And when the police finally came they took one look at him and was like, ‘You can stop now.’”

Police said Tinker was outside with two relatives on Nov. 11, and there was a dispute, and Tinker shot Robert.

Tinker was not arrested until four days later, and initially it wasn’t for the shooting. 

It all started on Nov. 14. Police say they picked up Tinker on Minnesota Drive after someone reported he was yelling and “appeared to be suffering from a mental health episode.” They took him to Providence Alaska Medical Center’s psychiatric unit, but he was released from that unit hours later, with a taxi voucher, according to police.

Providence staff declined to comment on why Tinker was admitted and why he was released, citing patient privacy laws.

Police said Tinker took a taxi from the hospital to the Sullivan Arena, and then he stole the taxi. He crashed the taxi, fled on foot, stole another car — armed with a gun — and later walked into an apartment, ordering the occupants to leave, according to police. Tinker was arrested early Nov. 15 following a standoff with SWAT officers.

A police investigation, including an interview with Tinker’s relatives from the Nov. 11 fight, led to Tinker being charged with first-degree murder in Robert’s death.

An Alaska inmate database listed Tinker as being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on Friday, after having been previously listed as at an “undisclosed location.” His initial court appearance was delayed on both Wednesday and Thursday due to medical concerns.

Schneider said prosecutors have been giving her updates on the case, as Tinker moves through the court system.

“I just couldn’t imagine doing something like that, or anybody doing something like that. I mean, I know it happens every day, obviously, but it’s…” she said, her voice trailing off.

From what she’s been told about Tinker, she said it “sounds like he was suffering from a mental break.”

Schneider said she wants Tinker to suffer the same fate as Robert, but she knows there’s no death penalty in Alaska. 

“And a lot of people that know me really well might be surprised by that – I am typically a lot more forgiving,” she said. “But it had changed a lot of people’s lives, what he did.”

Schneider said Robert’s family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with his funeral expenses.