A Utah teenager has been charged as an adult in a homicide that police investigators said took place after another teen sold him cooking spices instead of marijuana.
Seth Carreras, 17, of Layton, was moved into the adult population at the Davis County Jail earlier this month, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. He is being held without bail on charges of murder and assault by a prisoner.
Reporters described Carreras as “smirking” during a Jan. 5 court hearing in the death of Hunter Woodson, 19, who was gunned down in his Sunset home on Nov. 21. Carreras is accused of barging into the house and shooting Woodson to death in front of his girlfriend.
Woodson’s family members described Carreras’ facial expression in court as an “evil smile.”
"I feel like he had zero remorse for what he did," Travis Woodson, Hunter Woodson's uncle, told the Tribune. "He was proud of what he did. He was acting like he's proud of it."
Court documents obtained by the newspaper allege that Carreras went to Woodson's home the afternoon of the shooting after the pair messaged back and forth about a marijuana sale. They initially smoked a joint so Carreras could test the drug Woodson was selling, but the younger teen did not have cash on him, so he left.
He came back later in the day to buy 1 ½ ounces of the drug. Woodson did not have that much marijuana on hand, but told Carreras that he did.
While he sent his 17-year-old girlfriend out to collect Carreras’ cash, Woodson filled a small, pink plastic bag with paprika, salt, pepper and other spices and taped it shut, the affidavit said. When Woodson’s girlfriend delivered the fake marijuana to Carreras, he felt the bag and sensed that something was not right.
As he ripped the bag open, the girl ran into the house to warn Woodson, the Tribune reported.
Carreras followed her inside and into Woodson’s bedroom, where the girl hid behind the door while Woodson took a fighting stance, the affidavit said.
The girl told police that when Carreras walked into the room with a gun, Woodson asked, “What are you going to do about it, shoot me?”
Carreras did just that, firing “a lot of times” and causing Woodson to fall to the floor, the girl told investigators. He then stood over Woodson and continued shooting.
Before he fled, he rifled through Woodson’s pockets for his cash, the affidavit said.
Carreras was arrested less than 30 minutes later at his home, where officers found him trying to crawl under a car to hide, the Tribune said.
Woodson's obituary described him as a high school senior who, "after hitting a rough patch … was getting his life turned around." He had started taking some college courses and was looking forward to the future, his family wrote.
"You could usually find Hunter with his shaggy hair and charismatic smile doing what he loved more than anything else, eating," the obituary read.
“Hunter loved skateboarding, playing football and doing MMA,” his family wrote. “He was training for his first fight. He also loved the outdoors and spending time with family.”
Police officials who searched Carreras' home after the shooting found hundreds of pill bottles, guns, ammunition and two machetes in a shed on the property, the Tribune reported in December. They also found scales used to measure drug amounts and "marijuana shake," or small bits of plant matter that remain after larger nuggets are bagged or used, on the floor.
When investigators opened the shed door, they found a man sitting inside with a sword, the Tribune reported. He dropped the weapon and was arrested without incident.
Prior to his move to the adult jail, Carreras was held in a juvenile detention facility. His pending assault charge stems from a Dec. 22 incident in which he is accused of kicking the leg of a juvenile detention staff member.
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