14-year-old Utah boy charged with killing his neighbor — while trying to kill her husband

A 14-year-old Sandy boy has been charged with murder after he allegedly shot and killed a neighbor in July — while he was reportedly aiming at her husband.

According to charging documents, Aliani Mejia-Marin, 18, was driving near 200 W. Eastgate Drive on July 22 when her husband — an admitted gang member, according to police — saw members of a rival gang who, he said, had assaulted him the previous week. The husband told Mejia-Marin to stop the car, and he got out, confronted them and “hit them both” when they threatened him.

The husband told police that he then saw the 14-year-old “running at him, firing a black handgun”; that he “jumped back in the car”‘; and that, as Mejia-Marin began to drive away, a shot came through the vehicle’s window, striking her. She was taken to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, where she died shortly thereafter.

Mejia-Marin and her husband both lived on the same street in the mobile home park as the suspect.

According to a probable cause statement, one witness told police he saw the 14-year-old “pointing a gun and waving it around” before he fired “several rounds into the air.” Another witness told police she saw Mejia-Marin’s husband get out of the car and start fighting with two teenagers. She said Mejia-Marin also got out of the car, but her husband had told her to get back in the vehicle when a third teenager arrived and fired at the car three times.

The witness said the suspect appeared to be shooting at the husband, but missed and hit the wife.

When police questioned the suspect, he said he saw his friends getting beaten up, pulled out the handgun and fired it into the air. According to police, the 14-year-old also said it was “my fault” that Mejia-Marin “passed away” and that he had “committed murder.”

Police have not been able to find the gun; the 14-year-old said he “tossed” it, but couldn’t remember exactly where. The boy also speculated that another person might have taken it.

The suspect, who is being held in juvenile detention, has been charged in 3rd District Court with murder, a first-degree felony; obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; and two counts of felony discharge of a firearm, third-degree felonies.