“Kill Brother, Kill Sister”
By Leland Hale; Epicenter Press, 2025; 390 pages; $24.95.
On Oct. 12, 1985, while driving home from work, Alaska Airlines pilot Robert Pfeil was ambushed by occupants of another vehicle at the intersection of Jewel Lake Road and North Point Drive in Anchorage and shot multiple times.
The assailants sped away. Pfeil was left bleeding profusely. Police and paramedics quickly arrived and he was rushed to the hospital. There emergency room doctors were able to barely keep him alive. Among his injuries was a collapsed lung and a bullet lodged in his spine that would probably paralyze him for life.
The circumstances leading up to Pheil’s shooting, the probably related crime that preceded it by several years, and the intensive police investigation and lengthy trial that resulted have now been carefully picked apart in true crime writer Leland Hale’s absorbing account “Kill Brother, Kill Sister,” a book exploring two of the most high profile murders in Alaska’s post-statehood history.
The reason for the title is simple. Pfeil was the second member of his family targeted for assassination. The first had been his sister Muriel, owner of one of Anchorage’s most successful travel agencies and a wealthy city socialite.
On Sept. 30, 1976, just after 2 p.m., Muriel Pfeil had left her office to retrieve a coat she had bought earlier that day. Moments later as she sat in her car in a parking lot, it exploded, killing her instantly.
Nearly a decade later, the murder case remained open. But a suspected culprit had long been known. Muriel had gone through a messy divorce after a brief marriage. Her former husband, Neil Mackay, was himself a well known Anchorage resident, licensed attorney, and millionaire real estate mogul, known for his virulent temper.
The marriage had produced one child, Scotty, and custody had been given to Muriel. After her killing, Robert Pfeil immediately sought guardianship over Scotty, by then aged three. Mackay, who despised Pheil, had fought back. A years-long court battle between them ensued. Scotty, meanwhile, ping-ponged between both, this in between being ordered by courts to live with several temporary guardians.
As the book progresses, Hale weaves back and forth between the investigation of Robert Pfeil’s shooting, the earlier efforts at resolving his sister’s death, and the bitter back and forth that became Scotty’s early life as he was transferred from one custodian to another.
Mackay had not previously been noted for taking interest in his son. But suddenly, bringing him into his home became an obsession. Perhaps understandably. Scotty had inherited his mother’s substantial estate, and if Mackay obtained custody, he would have control over that as well.
Mackay had accused Robert Pfeil and his wife of being after that money, and thus not genuinely interested in Scotty’s welfare. The Pfeils, having supported Muriel throughout her divorce, considered Mackay utterly unworthy of parenthood. The courts heard it all, and attempts at finding a resolution were held in multiple courtrooms.
After a snaking series of legal filings and judicial decisions too long to detail here, along with sometimes startling events including Scotty’s virtual kidnapping and removal to Hawaii and then Micronesia by his father, full custody was eventually awarded to Mackay. The Pfeils dropped the case.
That should have ended things. Except Mackay’s seething hatred toward his his former brother-in-law never abated. He made no secret of it. So it was logical to surmise that he had been somehow involved in the 1985 attack.
Meanwhile, a month after being shot, Robert Pfeil died on Nov. 11 at a hospital in Minnesota. It had become a murder investigation, and Mackay was the prime suspect for involvement in the murders of both Pfeils.
Homicide investigators moved quickly. After dismissing several possible leads, including claims that it had been a union hit, suspicion narrowed onto several marginal individuals thought to have been contracted to kill Pfeil, petty criminals and drug users of little discernible intelligence. These included John Bright, who emerged as the likely triggerman, Robert Betts, fingered as the driver, and Tyoga Closson, accused of stealing and supplying the gun used in the shooting.
This led to Larry Gentry, a bartender and employee of Gilbert “Junior” Pauole. Pauole was an Anchorage underworld figure, strip club owner, and associate of Mackay’s. A trail began emerging, and it headed straight in the direction of Muriel’s former husband.
It’s a complicated story, one that Hale does his best to document step-by-step. If readers find themselves confused and having to page their way back to early events detailed in the book, it’s through no fault of his. The police whose work he follows were doing the same thing. Hale does an excellent job of showing how this painstaking process unfolded.
After putting the squeeze on several of the suspects, Pauole, knowing he was cornered, squealed, hoping to reduce his all but inevitable 99 year sentence for the crime. He fingered Mackay as having paid him to arrange the shooting. He wore wires to entrap Mackay and other co-conspirators. He agreed to testify in court.
Based on information obtained through Pauole, investigators obtained search warrants against Mackay, and soon he was in jail as well, charged with hiring the night club owner to kill Robert Pfeil.
Scotty, who had lived with his father for several years and was by that time a teenager, was once again sent to a new home.
Hale devotes dozens of pages to the resultant trials. Bright, Betts, Closson, and Gentry were quickly convicted. Mackay’s trial was moved to Fairbanks owing to extensive publicity in Anchorage. The cases hinged on testimony from Pauole, who had an easily documented history of lying under oath. The final jury didn’t believe him. Mackay was exonerated.
Hale clearly believes Mackay responsible, and his case is hard to argue with. But in a final ugly twist, legally speaking, the murders of Muriel and Robert Pfeil remain unsolved to this day. “Kill Brother, Kill Sister” is probably the only justice they and their loved ones will ever receive.
