The two men accused of killing 41-year-old James Moren in the early morning hours of Dec. 24 were arraigned on Christmas Day.
David Dennis, 36, and Roy Schauer, 46, both appeared in court Sunday. Each man is facing first- and second-degree murder charges for the shooting behind the Gaslight Bar in downtown Anchorage.
The felony complaint in the case lays out what police say led up to Moren’s death.
A witness at the scene told police that she knows Schauer. In the document, police say the woman confirmed that Schauer and Moren were at the bar during the same timeframe.
“She stated Schauer was acting weird all night long telling her that the Russians were coming,” the affidavit reads.
She told police she left the bar when Schauer did and was walking several yards behind him when she heard the shots fired. The court document states the woman hid in the alley and watched the man running away from the scene of the shooting. He was carrying a handgun and ran to his silver pickup truck.
The affidavit in the case states officers saw a silver pickup, which they were told was involved in the shooting, with the license plate “1 for 1” leaving the parking lots to the north of the Pioneer and Gaslight bars. When Anchorage Police Department officers pulled Schauer over, they saw a handgun inside the truck on the floorboard near the driver’s side, the affidavit states. It appeared to be a .45-caliber Glock.
Shell casings recovered on the scene are of the same caliber, APD states in the document.
As police stated in their Dec. 24 release, Schauer and Dennis were seen together on surveillance footage. In the video, Dennis hands Schauer a pistol from the cab of a tow truck. According to the court document, “Schauer immediately begins to track Moren. Schauer is holding the pistol in his right hand.” He moves toward the area where the shooting occurred, which is out of frame.
In the affidavit, another witness gave a different version of events. She said she and the other woman were both waiting with Schauer in his truck when a tow truck driver walked over to the man’s vehicle to talk to him about moving it. The man then went back to his tow truck and later, Schauer went to the tow truck to talk to the man.
She told police she saw Moren trying to help “an intoxicated individual.” She later saw a woman, identified only by initials in the document, walk out. She said Moren followed the woman — and Schauer followed Moren.
She heard three shots and saw Moren “go from standing to lying on the ground,” the affidavit reads.
Moren died at the scene.
Police interviewed Dennis, according to the affidavit. Dennis told police that prior to the shooting, Schauer gave him the pistol, which he kept in the cab of his tow truck. Schauer later came out of the bar for the gun, he said. APD says Dennis told detectives that he handed the gun to Schauer, watched him follow Moren down the alley and then shoot the man.
The affidavit states Dennis said he “manipulated the .45 Glock prior to providing it to Schauer,” and that his DNA and fingerprints would be on the weapon as well as the bullets within it.
When Schauer was taken to APD for interviews, Sgt. Landies heard him say, “tell David I fulfilled my obligation.”
The post 2 arraigned for downtown Christmas Eve homicide appeared first on KTVA 11.
