Anchorage woman pleads guilty to first degree murder in 2012 burning death of her fiancé

A woman set to go on trial for a 2012 Anchorage homicide pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Tuesday.

According to a release from Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson, Gina Virgilio entered the guilty plea for the murder of her fiancé Michael Gonzalez.

Virgilio's and Gonzalez's families told Channel 2 at the time that the two were engaged and had recently moved in together.

The Department of Law release states that on Friday, June 8, 2012, a fire broke out in an apartment at 201 McCarrey Street in the Russian Jack neighborhood.

There, firefighters discovered the body of a man later identified as Michael Gonzalez, one of the apartment's two registered tenants.

APD officers made contact with Michelle Virgilio, who was listed as an emergency contact on the lease, and confirmed that she was with Gina Virgilio, the other tenant on the lease of the burned apartment, and the two returned to the scene of the fire.

Gina Virgilio told officers that Gonzalez had started the fire.

But investigators learned later that prior to returning to the scene, Gina and Michelle were at Providence Hospital's emergency room, and that Gina had "made admissions to staff about the fire" while there.

Michelle eventually reached out to investigators with a shocking story.

Michelle claimed that Gina had confessed to her that she went to a gas station where she "obtained gas," walked home and poured gas on and around a couch where Gonzalez was sleeping before tossing a lit piece of paper into the apartment from the front door.

The release states that Gina described to her mother Gonzalez waking up and saying "hot, hot" before she closed the door to the apartment and fled the scene.

She was initially charged with first-degree murder, two counts of arson and two counts of criminal mischief. The lesser charges were dropped by prosecutors in return for her guilty plea.

Virgilio's plea agreement leaves sentencing in the hands of the judge, with a range of between 30 and 70 years.

Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 4.

The last name of the victim was misspelled in the release from the Department of Law. It has since been corrected in this story.