‘Pirate’ is back in Fairbanks, and some are concerned

By
Suzanne Downing
-
44

A man once accused of kidnapping and savage sexual assault of a woman he took to his cabin in Manley Hot Springs in 2015 has been spotted in Fairbanks again.

Daniel Lloyd Selovich, who has legally changed his name to Pirate, had been extradited to Nevada in 2016 after the Alaska case against him was dropped, when the victim died of unrelated causes.

At the time, Nevada authorities had connected Pirate via DNA to a Las Vegas rape some 12 years earlier. Selovich had also been convicted of rape in California in 2004.

Mo Duncan, a woman who lives in the Fairbanks North Star Borough but who has a cabin in Manley, wants both communities — and particularly women or those who care for mentally disabled women — to be aware that Pirate has made his way back to the Interior.

Duncan drove to the McDonald’s restaurant in Fairbanks where Pirate had been spotted, and took photos of him as he sat in the restaurant. She called him out by name and asked him what he was doing back in Alaska. She posted it all on Facebook.

Ms. Duncan said the restaurant manager seemed unconcerned — to the manager, the slim-built, toothless, tattooed man was just another homeless person using the restaurant as a day camp.

He obviously didn’t know the history, Duncan said.

But Duncan is concerned. She says she observed Pirate’s behavior for years because she has a cabin in Manley and has spent a lot of time there, and thinks that a subset of women who have low self esteem are attracted to the toothless man whose face is covered with Maori-style tattoos.

In fact, a woman he allegedly assaulted in Las Vegas was bipolar and disabled from spina bifida, a serious spinal cord condition that can affect the brain and has profound physical problems associated with it.

THE MANLEY INCIDENT

In September of 2015, Pirate allegedly picked up a woman at the Fairbanks Airport after she had flown north to have a type of unwise sexual escapade with him. They had allegedly met in an online sex group. Pirate, 37 at the time, got a charter flight to take them both to his remote cabin near Manley Hot Springs, where he allegedly beat her, duct taped her to him so she could not escape at night or even use a toilet without him, bit her, and used a belt on her. The woman later told investigators he raped her several times a day. She said he tied her to a roof beam and put a noose on her, held a knife to her face and threatened to cut her face off.

Kristi Buchanan, 43, said she was held for five weeks, but finally was able to contact friends through Facebook and asked them to help her. Alaska State Troopers arrived the next day, Nov. 8, 2015, in a helicopter, and Buchanan was taken to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Troopers found a Gerber knife, several rolls of duct tape, and rope attached to the small, squat cabin’s roof beam.

Pirate was charged with sexual assault, kidnapping, and felony and misdemeanor assault, and he was scheduled for trial on Aug. 22, 2016.

But then Buchanan died. Her body was found on July 21, 2016; there was no evidence of foul play. The Fairbanks District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges because they had no victim.

THE LAS VEGAS INCIDENT

Rather than being released from Fairbanks Correctional Center, however, Pirate was extradited to Nevada, where he was wanted for sexual assault, kidnapping, and battery for a case that dated back to 2004, when he allegedly raped and beat the victim with a belt after breaking into her room at the Ambassador East Motel on Fremont Street in Las Vegas.

Authorities had linked his DNA with evidence in the CODIS system, a national “Combined DNA Index System,” that law enforcement uses to solve violent crimes. Because of the nature of his alleged crimes in Alaska, Pirate’s DNA had been entered into CODIS, and Las Vegas police matched it. A warrant was issued.

In July of 2018, he pled guilty to one count of sexually motivated coercion and was sentenced to up to five years for the crime that had been committed in February, 2004. By then, that victim had also died of unrelated causes.

THE CALIFORNIA INCIDENT

In 2010, Pirate was charged with raping a woman under a bridge in Redding, California, on Dec. 16, 2004, according to the Redding Record Searchlight. There was also biting, slapping, and duct tape involved in that rape. At the time, he was going by his former name, Daniel Selovich and he didn’t have face tattoos. He legally changed his name in 2013.

Pirate was sentenced June 2010 to four years in prison after pleading no contest to assault. 

[Read: Transient arrested for rape under bridge]

In 2009, he was convicted of assault in Washington state. Other encounters with the law included vandalism, panhandling, and disturbing the peace in Tennessee, Florida, and Nebraska.

According to the the Redding Searchlight, a nationwide DNA index system came back with a match after Selovich was arrested in Florida in 2007, but he was not returned to Shasta County, California.

44 COMMENTS

  4. Pirates cabin on Kendamina lake no longer exists. Fallen in and not useable. I don’t believe he owned the cabin/land he used.
    There is much more to the story of him and the woman at Kindamina. Newsminer stories would contain some of that info.
    Wonder how he got here?

    • Because he was extradited , and never charged due to the woman dying, they were probably legally obligated to buy him a ticket back to Fairbanks, lucky us!

  5. This is alarming. He had committed all these crimes and is not in jail?? Rape especially? There is something wrong with this picture. Treat this troll like the plague.. Call the cops and report wherever you see him around others. Time for community action..

  6. Remember the one with the tattooed eyeballs that was hanging around Anchorage a few years ago. Where did he slink off to?

  7. It’s a crying shame our justice department has let us down once again. Now everyone needs to be concerned and on the out look for his next attack. It’s only a matter of time.

  10. How tf has this guy not been sentenced life or lethal injection, 3 rape cases with plenty of evidence against him, all 3 witnesses died shortly after… I mean wtf, is our legal system that rigged?

    • I posted a comment when this story popped that imposed a sentence much more demanding on this fine young man than lethal injection, but I think I didn’t frame it properly as my post seems to have disappeared. I hope the citizens of Fairbanks or Manley or wherever this feakazoid lands, make life very uncomfortable for him. I will leave it at that.

  11. Does the legal system not see a dangerous pattern here? All the women (that we know of) he raped have died suspiciously. I smell something rotten in the cotton ! This guy needs to be in prison for life! Not walking the streets looking for his next victim.
    Signed, Furious

  13. Maybe I’m living in the wrong decade, but could someone tell me what kind of a woman sees something interesting in this kind of fella?

    • You are in the correct decade. There are plenty of women out there that are damaged enough to fall for a person like this. Plenty of women literally dying for attention to be wanted by someone in some way or another. The “whys” that got them there are far greater than anything I can write about here.

      • I think you both are asking the wrong question. It’s not about what kind of woman would fall for this guy. You should be asking why and how this man became a violent predator towards women in the first place. Blaming the victims gets us nowhere. Maybe the women were damaged, but that does mean they deserved to be raped. Why didn’t either of you wonder about how “damaged” this guy must be to beat and rape a helpless tied up human being?

  14. He lives off the system. He said he receives Social Security Disability, so he has a guaranteed income. He was also receiving food stamps from Alaska when he was in Manley in 2015. His cabin burned to the ground during the 2017 wildfires.
    He is NOT welcome, nor wanted in Manley Hot Springs, and he will know it, IF he should show up here.

  15. I don’t know if you have ever watched CSI shows but to me that screams serial killer with rapist accomplice. Not serial rapist with back up. Watch this guy and see who he is with all the time!!!

  16. I was friends with the victim, Kristi Buchanan, and she didn’t meet him in a sex group. She met him on FB. He was in several groups in the “dirty kid” community. They may have both been in a singles group, but it was not a “sex group”. They talked for quite awhile online, and she obviously would have been wise to not follow through with meeting up with him, but your article makes it sound A LOT seedier than it actually was. Period. She didn’t go to have unwise sex with him either; she went because she loves Alaska and misjudged him as a potential kindred spirit. This story is awful enough without you making it worse by characterizing everything in sensationalist hues.

    • Thank you for posting this, I hope they see this and correct the story. It’s the victim-blaming attitudes of people like those who wrote this story that keep men like Pirate free.

      • What on earth? Reporting the information provided by law enforcement and media at the time is not “victim blaming,” and has nothing to do with him not being tried.

        • Whether/not this is as reported by law enforcement, the case is made that this was not some kind of “sex group,” by a friend of the victim. Suzanne can choose to ignore this but that would indicate she subscribes to this “victim blaming” IMO. And there was nothing mentioned by either of these folks about him not being tried.

    • I am not of the opinion that her meeting him was the problem here. She elected to go along to his camp/cabin after meeting him and there is essentially no reasonable person who would do such a thing IMO. “Kindred spirit” is also another unreasonable excuse, based on his appearance, but we know little about his (Pirate) ability to charm.

  17. Yes the justice system has let us down, but we aren’t going to let Fairbanks down. Everyone has a responsibility to help make Fairbanks Alaska safe again. The kind of women who fall for these people have disabilities, and possibly judgment impairment. But we don’t have to let him feel comfortable living here….it’s a honor and a privilege to live here, one he has not earned . Thank you

  19. He is now trolling for sled dogs on several sites. He needs to be banned on every dog site in the world…God knows what he wants sled dogs for, but I expect it is not for mushing.

    • After he did a lot of his crime spree. Also the legislature sure took their time helping out the law abiding citizens and fixing it.

  22. We don’t need this trash here (or anywhere people live). If y’all don’t want to have the death penalty, at least put trash like this on an island way the heck out in the middle of nowhere away from society. Also, why is he getting social security and food stamps? I was under the impression that if you were a convicted felon, that you couldn’t get any of that? If that isn’t true, it sure as heck should be.

  23. Hey buddy. How’s the job search going?

    It is a genuine shame that Alaska’s legal system has been flawed enough to let roaches of this caliber roam freely. It’s also a shame that a violent criminal might be provided Social Security benefits as it lowers the risk of the cretin being shot while breaking and entering.

  24. Has anyone been to Manley ? Worst place on earth, hands down.
    Let me put it this way. The Hills Have Eyes residents are more intelligent than these Manley folk.
    I was up there autumn of 2018 and had an unfortunate camping accident. Was expecting the local clinic to be closed due to arriving after 7:00PM. Was pleasantly surprised to see the door propped open. I was bleeding pretty bad and yelled out for assistance.
    What happened in the next 5 min. was roughly the worst treatment I have ever received.
    Third world countries have better treatment options than what this obese, foul mouth female in scrubs accompanied by her male “nurse” offered me.
    From my point of view in the parking lot. The female never left the bathroom.
    She ordered her nurse to come down and see what my problem was. There was no triage, no patient care. I was a problem. No one even washed their hands.
    Smartest move I made was backing up and driving to Fairbanks.
    I ended up needing stitches.

    • Excuse me but if you don’t mind I would greatly appreciate it if you were more descriptive of the nurses. Because I actually was hired around that time and I guarantee you that the people you are talking so poorly about aren’t even from here. They were probably doctors that come out to Manley routinely. But if someone else from Manley saw this ridiculous comment about the entire town, they might think you are talking about me and the current health aide. I guarantee you that if that was me or the current health aide you would’ve been treated a lot different. GOOD, actually GREAT healthcare. We both take our job seriously along with the people who are in need of help.

      • And to be honest, there is not nor has there been any nurses that had come out that was actually at the clinic at that hour. And not one that would treat anyone like that.

        • He is obviously a troll. We were there all hunting season, no accidents reported anywhere. The new clinic is being built right next to the old one, but he didn’t even mention that. Besides no one is even there after 3:00., you have to call the # for after hours.

  25. Yeah… That “cop calling system” ain’t working is it? … Call someone that can just take care of this creature before it does more harm. There are people that will fix this… Find one…

    The “law enforcement industry”? Ha… Their part of the problem

  26. What he has done in the past should be the past. By keeping him locked up by the townspeople is condemning him to no job, shelter, food, and only causes him to be stuck with that mindset, which could cause him to do the same or worse. The best thing you could do is make him register as a sex offender. Make sure he does, and maybe show him were he can get help for his problem. I’m not sticking up for this — dumpster, but try to make things better not worse. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Just saying.

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