An Anchorage grand jury indicted 51-year-old Ronald Wade Fischer on one count of sexual abuse in the first degree on March 30, 2023. Fischer is charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old woman behind an Anchorage restaurant in 1995.
Investigative efforts to identify a suspect in 1995 were unsuccessful, and the case went cold.
In 2020, the sexual assault kit collected in the case was tested as part of a State-funded initiative to test and analyze all untested sexual assault kits collected by 47 police departments statewide. The kit results identified a potential suspect through a DNA match. The Anchorage Police Department’s Cold Case Unit reopened the case and conducted additional investigation, and the Department of Law’s Office of Special Prosecutions presented the case to the grand jury.
If convicted at trial, Fischer faces a sentence of up to 30 years imprisonment. Fischer was arrested in the Lower 48 on April 5, 2023 and will be extradited to the State of Alaska to stand trial.
These charges are only allegations and are not evidence of guilt. Defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
