A 17-year old boy is being charged as an adult for allegedly fatally shooting a man and injuring two other people after a drug deal went wrong at Tanner Park earlier this month.
Andrew Whatcott has been charged with first-degree murder for the death of Domnyk Marez, according to court documents filed Thursday in 3rd District Court.
Salt Lake City officers were called to the park, near Parleys Canyon at 2695 E. Heritage Way, around 4 p.m. on Oct. 18 on a report that three people had been shot. They found Marez there, slumped in the front seat of a car with a bullet in his forehead.
Two other victims, one man and one woman, were found on the ground near the car with bullet wounds, according to the charging document.
The woman told officers she went with her friends to the park to buy marijuana from a 17-year-old she knew as “Drew.” When “Drew” got to the park, he sat in the front seat of her car, the woman told officers, according to charging documents.
The two had a disagreement over the price of the drugs and she told him to get out of the car. He allegedly refused, so Marez pulled him out of the car and then sat in the front seat and told the woman to leave. “Drew” then started shooting at them, according to the charging document.
Witnesses described the shooter to police as a male who was about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and wearing a white hoodie. One witness took a photo of the shooter’s license plate. The car in the photo was registered to Whatcott, according to the charging document.
Police say surveillance footage from Whatcott’s apartment shows him getting home 20 minutes after the shooting, wearing the clothing described by witnesses.
The woman suffered a collapsed lung, and the surviving male victim, who is still hospitalized, lost a finger, according to police.
Besides the murder charge, Whatcott has been charged with six felony counts for causing serious injuries with a gun, a felony count for having a gun despite having a criminal record and obstruction of justice, also a felony.
Police say he had juvenile convictions for assault and sexual abuse from 2019, which made it illegal for him to own a gun.
The Tribune was unable to contact lawyers for Whatcott since his lawyers have not been listed on the court’s website.
