A 17-year-old was charged with manslaughter last week for his alleged role in a shooting in an Anchorage Walgreens parking lot in late January that left 18-year-old Charles Gustav Steinhilpert III dead.
The Jan. 25 shooting stemmed from a drug deal during which the buyers intended to steal marijuana, according to the Anchorage Police Department. Owen Morgan Olrun, who police say was the drug dealer, was the fifth person to be arrested in connection with the shooting.
A 14-year-old suspected of fatally shooting Steinhilpert turned himself in to police roughly an hour after the shooting. In mid-February, Makur Chan, 19, Timothy Funches, 19, and Keiara Reynaud, 18, were indicted on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery.
Chan was also charged with the murder of 20-year-old Jeanpal Borge less than a week later, on Jan. 29. According to police, Chan had planned to steal marijuana in both incidents.
On the night of Jan. 25, Olrun had intended to sell 3 ounces of marijuana for $250 per ounce to a person he went to school with, charging documents state. The deal was originally slated for the Fred Meyer parking lot on Dimond Boulevard, but the meeting spot was changed to the Walgreens at Lake Otis Parkway and Tudor Road.
Olrun asked a friend for a ride, and Olrun, Steinhilpert and two other people drove to the Walgreens in a Toyota 4Runner. When they arrived, three people were waiting in a Honda in the parking lot to conduct the deal, police said.
The buyers wanted Olrun to get into their car, but he refused. The buyer, identified in other court documents as Makur Chan, then got into the Toyota 4Runner and asked to see some of the marijuana. He was handed an ounce, and instead of paying, Chan took the pot back to his car.
The 14-year-old, identified in court documents as X.T., then came out of the Walgreens, Olrun told police. He approached the driver's side of the 4Runner and attempted to get in the vehicle. He was trying to talk through the back left window, and Steinhilpert told him that there was no room inside. X.T. told the driver to roll down the window and unlock the car; when the driver didn't comply, X.T. reached into the vehicle, opened the door, grabbed the keys and "told them to give him the rest of the stuff," charging documents say.
Steinhilpert reached over the headrest and deployed a stun gun on X.T., who then shot Steinhilpert once.
Steinhilpert fell out of the vehicle and onto the ground. Olrun hid the other baggies of marijuana in a snowbank and, with the help of a passer-by, helped put Steinhilpert back in the vehicle, court documents say. The teens drove to the Alaska Native Medical Center, where Steinhilpert succumbed to his wounds roughly 20 minutes later.
As he was driven home, Olrun threw his sweatshirt out the window, and he changed his clothes once he got home, according to the charges.
On March 20, Olrun was charged with three felony counts: one count of manslaughter for recklessly causing Steinhilpert's death, one count of fourth-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance for intent to sell marijuana, and one count of tampering with physical evidence for deleting text messages from his phone, hiding the marijuana and tampering with his clothing.
Steinhilpert's death was the first homicide of 2015 in Anchorage, and was closely followed by a string of other fatal shootings.