A former U.S. Army soldier showed no visible reaction in court as a jury found him guilty in the killing of his wife, a combat medic, after prosecutors said his account of her disappearance fell apart during trial.
Zarrius Hildebrand, 23, looked straight ahead Thursday in Anchorage Superior Court as he was convicted of murder and evidence tampering in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Saria Barney and the concealment of her body in a storm drain, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Testifying at trial, Hildabrand described efforts to cover up what had happened, saying, “The plan was to hide the body of my wife and then clean up the blood off the mattress and the surrounding area,” according to Court TV.
The jury, however, cleared him of the more serious charge of first-degree murder.
The couple, who had recently married after meeting during basic training in the summer of 2022, had spent the evening with friends at Dave & Buster’s for Hildabrand’s 21st birthday before taking an Uber home. It was the last confirmed time Barney was seen alive.
Hildabrand, a cannon crewmember assigned to the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, later told Barney’s mother, Meredith Barney, that Saria had not come home from work the next day. Friends, however, said Barney had already planned not to report for her shift.
Investigators later discovered Barney’s body in a storm drain near the couple’s Alaska home after drone footage captured during the search revealed it had been hidden beneath a pillow.
Hildabrand had also taken part in the search effort to find her.
Saria had moved from Utah to the home she shared with her husband just six months before being found dead with a single bullet to her left temple in 2023.
Zarrius Hildebrand, 23, was convicted in Anchorage Superior Court last Thursday of second-degree murder and evidence tampering
He fatally shot his wife, Saria Barney, 21, on August 6, 2023 and hid her body in a storm drain near their property before lying to authorities about what had happened
The young couple had met at basic training last summer and were married in December 2022. Saria was a combat medic for the Alaska National Guard – and she moved from Utah to Alaska to be with her new husband just six months before she was found dead
Prosecutors have since argued that Hildabrand killed Saria after she learned he was having an affair, while the defense team claimed it was possible that Saria took her own life or died in an accident.
During a two-week long trial, jurors heard from Hildabrand’s friend, First Sgt. Toby Howry, who claimed he once visited the former soldier in prison – where he admitted ‘I did what I did.’
Howry recalled feeling uneasy by the comment, but he was left in complete shock after he said he saw Hildabrand crack a smile after his confession.
The sergeant then reported the off-putting comment to his chain of command, Court TV reported.
Jurors also heard emotional testimony from Saria’s mother, who wept as she described her final communication with her daughter.
During their night out, the 21-year-old texted her mother a photo she took with her husband, Meredith testified.
‘Yeah, they sent me a picture after they won Pickle Rick with her and Zarrius,’ the distraught mother said, referring to the prize that’s inspired by the character from the popular sitcom Rick and Morty.
An attorney then showed Meredith a printed-out version of that picture and asked: ‘Was that the last time you heard from Saria?’
‘Mhm, yeah,’ Meredith replied as she looked down somberly.
Saria’s mother, Meredith, testified in court how her daughter sent her one last text message on their night out
She further revealed that she didn’t call her daughter the following day because she figured she needed to rest after the late night.
It wasn’t until the following day that Meredith, who lived in Mount Pleasant, Utah, heard from Hildabrand after he called her from Saria’s cellphone.
The lawyer asked her: ‘And what did he tell you in that phone call?’
‘He told me that he had just reported her missing and that he, he just kind of told me the story. She left for work, she was hungover, she left for work, left her phone at home, and didn’t come back,’ she recalled the alleged killer telling her about her daughter.
Saria’s mother and her aunt flew to Alaska right after hearing from Hildabrand, she detailed.
She described Hildabrand as being ‘very paranoid and very rigid’ during their search for Saria.
According to Meredith, Hildabrand also became strangely upset when he saw the missing persons poster her family had made.
After seeing that Meredith put her phone number on the paper as a point of contact, and that it used Saria’s maiden name, she said Hildabrand protested that it should be his number and his last name instead.
In an unexpected twist, Hildabrand also took the witness stand at his trial – and admitted he has no memory of what happened that night and is unsure whether he may have fired the gun
Meredith told how Hildabrand became strangely upset when he saw the missing persons poster her family had made
MORE STORY: The migrant gang-rape cases involving young girls that inspired a controversial banned film
In an unexpected twist, Hildabrand also took the witness stand at his trial – and admitted he has no memory of what happened that night and is unsure whether he may have fired the gun, KSL reports.
Hildabrand said he was testifying for himself and not the jury because he wanted the truth out there.
‘Regardless of the outcome of the trial, I needed to tell the truth, I needed to get the weight off of three years of a lie,’ he explained.
When he was then asked during cross examination how he knows he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, Hildabrand replied, ‘I don’t.’
When he was then asked whether he wanted the jury to believe his wife fired the gun, the former soldier declared: ‘It’s not up to me what the jury believes.’
He then went on to testify about his actions the following morning.
Hildabrand told how he ran to the store multiple times following his wife’s death, cleaned up their home, continued drinking and put his wife’s body in a trash can to move it to a storm drain, where he ultimately dumped her body with blankets and pillows, which he said he had planned to burn.
‘The plan was to hide the body of my wife and then clean up the blood off the mattress and the surrounding area,’ he explained from the witness stand.
He said he did not ask for help because he didn’t think anyone could help him.
The now 23-year-old former soldier testified in court that he would drink to the point where he couldn’t remember what happened once or twice a year
Hildabrand further testified that he would drink to the point where he couldn’t remember what happened once or twice a year, and said it was his ‘routine’ afterward to go through his phone to check to see what had happened.
When he woke up that morning, Hildabrand said he saw Snapchat messages had been screenshotted and sent from his phone to his wife’s phone.
He said he was on his way to their bedroom to ask about it when he ‘realized that she was no longer alive.’
Hildabrand said he didn’t do CPR because he did not feel a pulse.
‘I just was confused, this was where the fear started to set it and I was hurt,’ he testified. ‘And I basically didn’t know what I was, I didn’t know what I was going to do.’
The murderer further told how he was afraid of ‘letting everyone that I loved down’ and thought that others would assume the worst, and he would lose his family and ‘go to jail for something that I had no recollection of.’
At multiple points during his testimony, Hildabrand said he felt shame, anger, disrespect and self-hatred.
‘I just felt so hollow and empty and just disgusted and just hating what I was doing and hating myself for doing it,’ he testified.
The soldier then went on to say he lied when asked about what had happened to his wife because he wanted to follow the plan he had already committed to.
But helping in a search for Saria felt ‘incredibly dishonest and disrespectful,’ he said.
Hildabrand showed little emotion during his own testimony, but was seen wiping his eyes when his mother, who adopted him and his younger brother when he was six years old, took the stand and testified how he never spoke about missing or loving Saria.
Hildabrand’s defense team tried to argue it was possible that Saria took her own life
During closing arguments, Hildabrand’s attorney, Lacey Brewster, argued there are three possible manners of death – and it is reasonable to believe Saria died by accident or suicide.
She noted there was no evidence Hildabrand was violent.
Brewster also argued prosecutors and investigators were biased by his actions, but there is no reasonable response to waking up and finding your wife dead.
‘This case is about reasonable doubt, because this could be an accident,’ she told the jurors. ‘Reasonable doubt is not based on what normal people do, reasonable doubt is based on reason and common sense. It is based on the absence of evidence.’
Brewster then encouraged the jury to not get distracted from that doubt by the emotion in the case, acknowledging that her client made mistakes.
However, prosecutor Brittany Dunlop argued in her own closing arguments that Saria’s death was not an accident or suicide, but rather homicide.
‘He shot her in the head and then callously disposed of her body down a storm drain. He perpetuated a lie about her being missing and has lied to every single person that he talked to about Sarah’s death, and he lied to you yesterday,’ she said.
‘Selective amnesia is a coward’s way out of a hard truth,’ she continued, arguing Hildabrand ‘acted impulsively and drunkenly, no doubt – but he did act intentionally.’
Dunlop then went on to claim that Hildabrand was trying to ‘plant a story’ early in the morning following her death as he scoped out where he could dispose of Saria’s body.
‘You don’t cover up an accident, you cover up a crime,’ she argued.
The prosecutor further noted that Saria was shot from just about six inches away, in a position that would have been difficult for her to pull the trigger, as she cited testimony from officers and a medical examiner that her injury did not resemble a typical suicide case.
‘The defendant’s story is not reasonable… it’s what he wants to tell himself because it makes him feel better,’ she said.
‘Being black out drunk does not absolve him of liability.’
Hildabrand now faces up to 99 years behind bars. He is due to appear for a sentencing hearing in October.
