John McClelland’s remains have not been found, but jurors convicted his roommate after a 42-witness trial.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Prosecutors won a manslaughter conviction against Aaron Hague without recovering John McClelland’s body, relying instead on witness testimony, financial records, false hospital messages and Hague’s admission that he caused his roommate’s death.
The Fairbanks verdict came in a case built around absence: no body, no hospital record, no verified goodbye from McClelland and no proof that he went where Hague said he went. Jurors acquitted Hague of first-degree murder, but convicted him of manslaughter, second-degree theft and tampering with physical evidence. The result leaves Hague facing up to 20 years in prison for manslaughter and up to five years each for the other felonies. It also sends him toward a separate Oregon case in which he is accused of killing Anthony Alcorn, a man whose identity prosecutors say Hague stole.
The Alaska trial focused first on proving that McClelland was dead. He was 61, lived with Hague in North Pole and was on probation and parole when he disappeared in August 2020. Prosecutors said he stopped reporting to work and to probation and parole around the same time that his brother Dan, in Michigan, received texts claiming McClelland was sick in a Fairbanks hospital. Those messages asked for more than $8,000. They also gave a reason for McClelland’s silence. But Dan McClelland checked a care center and two hospitals and found no record that his brother had been admitted.
Hague offered investigators an account that prosecutors said fell apart. He told Alaska State Troopers that he had dropped McClelland at an urgent care facility in Fairbanks. Troopers determined that never happened. Hague also said he had received text messages from McClelland about being hospitalized, but when asked to show them, he said he had lost the phone. For prosecutors, the two claims mattered because they mirrored the fake story sent to McClelland’s family. They argued that Hague was not confused or mistaken. He was trying to make a dead man appear alive long enough to divert suspicion and gain access to money and property.
The money evidence gave the no-body case a concrete trail. Prosecutors said Hague made nearly $3,000 in purchases with McClelland’s debit card after the disappearance. They said he was left in sole possession of McClelland’s Jeep, GMC truck, boat and trailer. They also said he filed an unemployment insurance claim in McClelland’s name. The state called 42 witnesses to describe the timeline, records and conduct after McClelland vanished. Those witnesses helped prosecutors argue that Hague benefited from the death and then concealed it. The jury’s theft and tampering verdicts show jurors accepted key parts of that argument.
Hague’s testimony changed the case from a missing person question into a dispute over legal responsibility. He acknowledged on the stand that McClelland was dead and that he caused the death. He said he shot McClelland in self-defense. The jury rejected that explanation as a complete defense, but it did not convict him of first-degree murder. That split verdict means jurors found Hague criminally responsible for killing McClelland, while not finding the proof needed for the murder charge. Alaska State Troopers Sgt. Jeremy Rupe had earlier testified at a death presumption hearing, “We believe that he was 100% murdered.”
The prosecution also showed what Hague did after troopers began asking questions. On Aug. 26, 2020, one day after investigators interviewed him about McClelland, Hague fled Fairbanks and hitchhiked to Anchorage. At a cousin’s apartment, prosecutors said, he stated that he and McClelland “got into it” and that “murder happened.” He then tried to steal his cousin’s passport, according to the state. Hague later stayed at a temporary homeless shelter at Sullivan Arena, where prosecutors said he assumed his younger brother’s identity. That stay placed him near Alcorn, an Ohio man who looked similar to him.
Alcorn’s role was not required to prove McClelland’s death, but it became important to the wider timeline. Prosecutors said Hague took Alcorn’s Ohio identification card and, in October 2020, used it to fly to Seattle under Alcorn’s name. He then traveled to Portland and began living and working as Anthony Alcorn. In January 2021, prosecutors said, Hague met a woman on the MAX light rail line and told her he was Russian, that his American name was Anthony Alcorn and that his Russian name was Anton Vovk. Those claims helped show how far the false identity had moved from a stolen card to a daily alias.
Oregon prosecutors now allege Hague lured Alcorn from Anchorage to Gresham in March 2021 with the promise of a good-paying job, then killed him in a wooded area to secure the identity and avoid prosecution for McClelland’s death. Hague is charged in Oregon with first-degree murder and identity theft, but those charges are accusations. He has not been convicted in that case. Gresham detectives arrested him near the Gresham Central Transit Center on March 30, 2021. Police said he gave Alcorn’s name. A search found Alcorn’s Social Security card, Alaska identification card and debit card, along with Hague’s own documents.
The Alaska verdict does not resolve the Oregon case, but it gives prosecutors in Fairbanks a completed trial in a difficult category of homicide. No-body cases require jurors to decide whether a person is dead and whether the defendant caused that death without the medical and scene evidence that remains can provide. Here, prosecutors used McClelland’s sudden disappearance, the false medical story, missing hospital records, Hague’s false urgent care account, spending from McClelland’s account, property possession, identity conduct and Hague’s trial admission. McClelland’s body remains missing, and officials have not publicly reported a recovery location.
The case now moves from verdict to punishment. Hague is in the custody of the Alaska Department of Corrections and is being held without bail. Deputy District Attorney Andrew Baldock and Assistant District Attorney Katherine Gonsalves prosecuted the Fairbanks case. The Department of Law said they thanked Alaska State Troopers, Gresham police and Fairbanks District Attorney’s Office paralegals Allison Watega and Jaci Jividen for work preparing the case. The remaining open questions include the sentence Hague will receive in Alaska and the outcome of the Oregon trial expected later this year.
For now Hague is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 11, 2026, in Alaska. Following sentencing, officials expect him to be transported to Oregon to face the pending charges in Alcorn’s death.
Author note: Last updated May 5, 2026.