This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Layton • A jury trial began Monday for an Ogden man accused of fatally shooting his friend's ex-boyfriend in a Davis County home last year.
Jory Arlow Fenstermaker, 24, is charged in 2nd District Court with first-degree felony murder, accused of shooting and killing 29-year-old Randy Lennel Lewis on March 15, 2015. He also faces charges of aggravated assault and use of a firearm by a restricted person, both third-degree felonies.
Fenstermaker's trial is expected to last six days.
The prosecution's first witness, Davis County Sheriff's Deputy Neal Major, testified that he was called to a home in West Point at about 12:40 a.m. that day on a report of a shooting. When he walked into the home, he testified, he immediately noticed a smell of marijuana and gun powder. He spotted Lewis lying on the floor, moaning, and soon discovered the man had been shot in the chest.
Police body camera footage played in court Monday showed Lewis being treated by medics as he struggles and screams his ex-girlfriend's name. The woman, Andrea Green, tells him that he's been shot and to calm down as medics try to help him. After being treated at Green's home, Lewis was taken to a local hospital, where he died.
In the police video, Green tells an officer that she is friends with Fenstermaker, and had been in contact with him through the messaging app SnapChat. After the shooting, Green shows the officers a SnapChat purportedly from Fenstermaker that reads: "I was never at your house. He had a knife. I left."
Lewis, who lived in Kansas City, Mo., had been visiting Green and their two children at her West Point home, according to preliminary hearing testimony.
Defense attorney Russell Farr told jurors Monday that the three adults had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana on the night of the shooting. Fenstermaker and Lewis then began "slap boxing" and play wrestling, Farr said.
As the night went on, Farr said, Lewis began making threats towards Fenstermaker, perhaps believing that the defendant had an interest in dating Green. At times, Lewis told Fenstermaker that he would kill him or beat him up.
The situation escalated, Farr said, as his client saw Lewis move toward a kitchen bar area where a kitchen knife had been placed.
"My client perceives his life was in danger," Farr said. "And he fires one shot. One shot. And then he freaks out and runs away."
Green testified at a preliminary hearing last January that she did not believe Lewis was a threat to Fenstermaker's life.
Fenstermaker was arrested later that evening. He bailed out of the Davis County jail, but was arrested again last August after he allegedly brandished a handgun in a pizza restaurant in downtown Ogden during an argument.
He is now being held in the Weber County jail, and a trial is scheduled to begin in March in the brandishing case.