State prosecutors have dismissed their case against 48-year-old Chad Zurlo, who was facing a second-degree murder charge.
That’s according to court documents filed Wednesday in Fairbanks Superior Court. Zurlo had gone to trial three separate times in connection with fatally shooting his quasi-landlord, Steven Corcoran, in Fairbanks 11 years ago.
A jury found him guilty of second-degree murder but acquitted him of first-degree murder in 2017. That verdict was later tossed by a state appeals court due to prosecutorial misconduct.
Zurlo’s girlfriend at the time of the shooting died between the first and second trials. She was the only eye witness to the shooting other than the defendant.
The jury hung in both the second and third trials, which took place last year and earlier this month.
The case began with a May 2014 incident, when Corcoran reportedly entered the room Zurlo was subletting uninvited and yelled at him about work.
The defense said during the trials that Corcoran voiced a death threat and reached behind his back, leading Zurlo to pick up a handgun and shoot Corcoran.
In both of the more recent trials, Public Defender Eric Hedland argued that his client’s actions constituted both legal self defense and legal defense of premises.
For the prosecution, Deputy District Attorney Andrew Baldock mostly pointed to a statement Zurlo reportedly said to his girlfriend after the shooting, telling her he had “snapped.”
Hedland declined to comment on the case’s dismissal. In an emailed response to questions, Fairbanks District Attorney Joe Dallaire called the incident “tragic” and said the decision to drop the case came after internal discussions and speaking with Corcoran’s family.
He added, “With great deference to the collective voice of the past two juries and how our evidence played out in front of them, we did not believe that a fourth trial would yield a different outcome, as much as we’d like it to.”
This story was updated with comment from Fairbanks District Attorney Joe Dallaire.