US Army soldier Zarrius Hildabrand woke up beside his dead wife Saria Barney Hildabrand and it wasn’t long before he was posting on Facebook claiming he had no idea where she was
06:00, 24 Jul 2026Updated 09:24, 24 Jul 2026
Zarrius Hildabrand with newlywed wife Saria before everything went wrong (Image: Facebook)
A former US Army soldier shot his wife in the head after she exposed his secret — before falling asleep beside her body.
Zarrius Hildabrand then woke up next to the corpse before eventually dumping the body into a storm drain. He then pleaded for help in finding his missing partner on social media before his lies started to unravel.
Last month, Hildabrand, who is 23, was convicted of killing Saria Barney Hildabrand, 21, and below we look back on the troubling case.
Zarrius and Saria
Hildabrand is originally from Kentucky and was adopted into foster care at the age of five.
Saria, who was close to her mother and called her every day, meanwhile came from a more stable home in Utah. She met her future husband when they did basic training together.
She dreamed of being an anaesthesiologist in the military and the kind young woman married US Army soldier Hildabrand in 2022 — just one year after they first met.
The 21-year-old was an Alaska National Guard combat medic(Image: Facebook)
They moved to Anchorage, Alaska, together, where Saria was a National Guard combat medic. She also worked in a restaurant.
However, just six months after moving into an apartment together in Anchorage, Saria was found dead.
Murder
In August 2023, Saria organised a 21st birthday party for her husband, and invited his friends over for the celebration.
They ventured to an arcade and a sports bar together before the couple went home in an Uber.
According to reports, Hildabrand, who was in the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Alaska, was too drunk to stay out, and that evening, Saria found damning text messages on her husband’s phone.
It exposed an affair he was having with a woman back in Kentucky and she discovered that he had sent her nudes and even offered to fly her to Alaska later that year when Sara was going to be away. The other woman was unaware that he was married.
Zarrius Hildabrand seen in court (Image: Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
Tragically, in the early hours of that morning, Hildabrand shot his wife as she lay in bed, before sleeping beside the body.
Reflecting on those disturbing details, Coffeehouse Crime presenter Adrian Stewart recently said: “How disgusting is that? I mean, how horrifying can you be?”
Cover up
The next morning, Hildabrand tried to cover up the crime, and he started by using his wife’s phone to text a work colleague at the restaurant to say she was too sick to come to work.
He then made trips to a hardware store where he bought a massive rubbish bin (which he used to move her body) before buying bleach and cleaning supplies at a local supermarket.
In the evening, on August 7, Saria’s friend called the police and said: “I haven’t spoken to her in two days and her husband hasn’t heard from her in over a day, like 30 hours now.”
And after she was officially reported missing, Hildabrand shamelessly posted on Facebook asking for the people of Alaska to help him find her.
Hildabrand shared appeals for information on social media (Image: Facebook)
He wrote “PLEASE RESHARE AND REPOST” and he told the police she left for work and never returned home.
On August 9, police arrived at the apartment with a warrant, and they found the underside of the bed heavily stained in blood.
The kitchen had also been recently cleaned too and two handguns were found along with a letter from Hildabrand where he requested being buried next to his wife if anything happened to either of them.
Hours later, Saria’s body was found by police in a nearby 15 to 20 foot storm drain, and there was a bullet hole in her head.
Hildabrand was charged with murder and tampering with evidence before he went on trial.
Trial
Earlier this month, Hildabrand was found guilty over the death of his wife.
Saria Barney Hildabrand(Image: Facebook)
However, he was acquitted of first-degree murder before being found guilty of second-degree murder and evidence tampering. He will be sentenced in October.
A second-degree murder conviction in Alaska carries a prison sentence of anything from 10 to 99 years.
His lawyers argued that Saria had either taken her own life or died accidentally and Hildabrand was pushed on why he hid her body after waking up that morning rather than report it.
He argued he was still drunk from the night before and that he was afraid he would get the blame — and he spoke during the trial about what was going through his mind when he put the corpse in a drain.
“I remember lifting off the cover of the storm drain and then pulling my wife’s body down the storm drain,” he said.
Saria was shot dead in the early hours of August 6, 2023 (Image: Facebook)
As for what he was thinking, he said: “More disrespect, more self-hatred. I remember I just felt so hollow and empty and just disgusted and just hating what I was doing and hating myself for doing it.”
He also told the court: “The plan was to hide the body of my wife and then clean up the blood off the mattress and the surrounding area.”
Reflecting on the case, the Coffeehouse Crime presenter told his 2.1million subscribers: “Stories like this are really upsetting because it’s quite clear to see that Saria was a very good person. I know that some people believe that I tend to big up the victims, but honestly, I just report what I see in obituaries and from family members.
“And especially in this case, Saria was nice. She was a genuinely lovely person. And it’s such a shame that she married such a monster who ultimately would end her life in the most brutal of ways.”
Prosecutor Brittany Dunlop meanwhile said: “He shot her in the head and then callously disposed of her body down a storm drain.”
She added that he “acted impulsively, and drunkenly, no doubt — but he did act intentionally”.