Ellison Buster, a seven-year-old Native American boy, was asleep in his bed in Palmer, Alaska, in the pre-dawn hours of November 30, 2020, when a relative broke into his family’s home. The boy was killed by gunfire, one of four family members to die in a string of shootings that morning. A friend later recalled that Ellison’s mother, Kimora Buster, was a joyful person with a huge, beaming smile, and that her children were her world.
The violence began shortly after 3 a.m. at a home near Wasilla, when an 18-year-old man, Cody Roehl, was shot. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. The shooter fled in a stolen white Jeep Liberty with a semi-automatic Glock pistol. About half an hour later, police in the nearby town of Palmer received multiple calls about gunshots at another residence. Officers arrived to find that someone had broken in through a basement window. Inside, they found 43-year-old Kimora Buster dead on the floor.
In a bedroom, Ellison lay dead from gunshot wounds. His 10-year-old sister, Sienna Buster, had also been shot in her bed; she was rushed to a hospital but succumbed to her injuries. A fourth child, Ellison’s six-year-old brother who was sleeping beside him, was physically unharmed.
Investigators quickly connected the two crime scenes. The suspect, 18-year-old Malachi Maxon, was a relative who had been staying with the Buster family for a few days. Just a week before the killings, he had been released from jail on pre-trial electronic monitoring for a separate domestic violence charge. Information from his monitoring device placed him at the Buster residence at the time of the shootings. Around 4:07 a.m., troopers spotted the stolen Jeep on the Glenn Highway near Mirror Lake and arrested Maxon without incident.
While being transported after his arrest, Maxon tried to escape custody by running toward nearby trees and attempting to pull a trooper’s pistol from its holster before he was subdued. Investigators who processed the crime scene at the Buster home found numerous spent cartridge casings. They noted that there were more bullet defects in the bed where the two boys slept than near the other victims, indicating that Maxon had likely tried to shoot the six-year-old as well, but was unsuccessful. Authorities suggested the younger boy’s life may have been spared by faulty ammunition.
Malachi Maxon was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, and additional charges for theft, assault, and attempted escape. Following his initial court hearings, bail was set at $10 million. As of December 2020, the case was pending trial.
