A Michigan man suspected of having murdered a co-worker in Alaska in 1993 was arrested recently after he called in what he intended to be an anonymous tip revealing where had hidden the victim’s long missing body, according to investigators.
Christopher Popps, 54, faces charges of second-degree murder in the death of Patrick Dearth, Alaska state police said in a statement detailing the latest developments in a case that had remained unsolved for more than three decades.
Dearth, 34, was reported missing to police in the city of Fairbanks in November 1993. His whereabouts remained a mystery until an initially anonymous tipster called authorities in January 2025, took responsibility for Dearth’s disappearance and disclosed where the victim’s remains were, the state police’s statement said.
Investigators determined the tipster was Popps but did not elaborate. And in May 2025, they found what was later confirmed to be Dearth’s remains in a barrel, at the bottom of a steep highway embankment where Popps had allegedly directed them, state police said.
Alaska Public Media, citing a state police spokesperson, Austin McDaniel, reported that Popps and Dearth had been colleagues at an auto shop. The former had allegedly shot the latter to death during an altercation at their workplace, McDaniel said, according to the outlet.
McDaniel told Alaska Public Media that it appeared Popps had provided multiple anonymous tips about Dearth and his responsibility for the victim’s disappearance to law enforcement agencies in the state. It was not immediately clear what motivated Popps to do that, McDaniel added to the outlet.
The state police spokesperson also reportedly said that investigators waited about four months to search for Dearth’s body because the area where the victim had been left was covered in snow at the time of the January 2025 tip. Daylight is also scarce at that time of year, Alaska Public Media quoted McDaniel as saying.
Court records show Alaska’s office of special prosecutions obtained an indictment from a Fairbanks grand jury which charged Popps with Dearth’s murder on 25 June.
Popps was listed in court records as a resident of Battle Creek, Michigan, at the time of the indictment. And state police in Michigan arrested Popps on 16 July, booking him into the Kalamazoo county jail near Battle Creek, according to officials.
He remained held without bond at that facility on Monday, with his transfer to the custody of Alaska authorities pending. Under Alaska law, Popps could get between 10 and 99 years in prison if eventually convicted of second-degree murder.
Alaska state police said they had notified Dearth’s family of Popps’s arrest.
Attempts to contact survivors of Dearth on Monday were unsuccessful. Information about a legal representative for Popps was not immediately available.