Former Alaska corrections officer sentenced to 150 years in prison for killing wife and teen daughter

A former Alaska corrections officer who pleaded guilty to the 2022 killings of his wife and daughter earlier this year was sentenced this week to 150 years in prison.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Josie Garton on Tuesday sentenced Jalonni Blackshear to consecutive 75-year sentences for first- and second-degree murder in the 2022 killings of his wife, Raechyl Blackshear, and their 14-year-old daughter, Jayla, according to filings in the case.

The sentence came after Blackshear pleaded guilty to the charges in late January. Blackshear, in a plea agreement affidavit, said that he shot and killed his wife and daughter in their Scenic Foothills neighborhood home on April 4, 2022, amid a police investigation into suspicions that Blackshear had sexually abused his daughter.

The plea agreement called for a 150-year sentence, according to a May 11 sentencing memorandum signed by Assistant District Attorney Rachel Gernat.

Nearly a dozen other charges, including murder, sexual abuse of a minor and incest, were dismissed as part of the plea agreement with prosecutors, according to the memorandum.

Blackshear had a history of abusing and terrorizing his family, Gernat said in the memo. He shot his family members in the head to avoid prosecution on sexual abuse charges after he failed to coerce his daughter to recant statements given to Anchorage police about being sexually assaulted in late March of that year, she wrote.

In his plea agreement affidavit, Blackshear admitted that the murders were unprovoked and that he was likely to face charges for sexually abusing his daughter.

The mother and daughter were last seen on April 3, 2022, after Blackshear convinced his wife to take their daughter to Anchorage police to try to get her to retract her sexual assault allegations, prosecutors said.

Blackshear quit his job and fled Alaska several days later after he was charged with sexually abusing his daughter. Prosecutors said he used the mother and daughter’s phones to impersonate them in an effort to convince others they were alive.

Raechyl and Jayla Blackshear were found dead in the family home days later after Raechyl Blackshear missed a medical appointment, according to police. Tracking data from their phones led to Blackshear’s arrest in New York weeks later, according to prosecutors.

Blackshear was jailed at the Mat-Su Pretrial facility as of Thursday afternoon.