Murders at Manley Hot Springs

Manley Hot Springs is the end of the road, where civilization meets wilderness, and the boat landing in Manley Hot Springs offers the last portage for fishermen, trappers, and wanderers to put their boats in the water and travel further up the icy Tanana River. Because the road ends in Manley, residents admit they see their share of drifters and people trying to escape from somewhere or something. When Michael Silka arrived in Manley on Monday, May 13, 1984, residents accepted him as another straggler searching for a new life. Residents should have been terrified. Michael Silka was about to change sleepy Manly Hot Spring forever.

Michael Silka

Michael Silka grew up in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and classmates recall him as a nonconformist from an early age. Neighbors describe his parents as “good people,” but state Michael was always different. Teachers remember Silka as a difficult student who often caused trouble. When Silka was a juvenile and young man, police arrested him numerous times for unlawful use of a weapon, burglary, shoplifting, and resisting arrest.

Silka loved hunting, fishing, and firearms. A neighbor convinced him to join the Army after he graduated from high school in 1977, and in 1981, the Army transferred Silka to Ft. Wainwright near Fairbanks, where he began to dream about living in the wilderness in Interior Alaska. He wanted to subsist and make money selling furs as a trapper. According to Army records, Silka earned an expert marksman rating with the M16 rifle and grenade…