Riverton Teen Charged With Shooting Friend In Head During Horseplay With Gun

More than two months after an 18-year-old was shot in the head and killed in a Riverton apartment during what police describe as a deadly night of drinking and reckless gunplay, a suspect has been charged. Newly filed affidavits reveal that two young Riverton men are wanted in connection with the March 3 shooting death of Charlie Washington, who died sitting in a recliner. One faces felony charges of manslaughter, aggravated assault and battery, and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent. The other is accused of accessory before the fact to involuntary manslaughter and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent.

According to the affidavits, witnesses told investigators that the two suspects and Washington had been “rough playing” inside the living room while others hung out nearby. A witness said one of the suspects pulled a handgun from his shirt pocket and jokingly said he was going to “murk” Washington. The gun then became part of a social media photo session. One teenager reportedly took a photo of the other pointing the gun at Washington. Then the two switched places and took more photos with the weapon aimed at the victim.

The affidavits say one of the suspects eventually inserted a magazine into the handgun, racked the slide, and pointed the firearm at Washington once again—except this time, according to witnesses, a live round had been chambered. Then he pulled the trigger, and a bullet struck Washington in the head while he sat in the recliner. Witnesses saw the teen immediately panic, throw the gun down, and begin “jumping up and down waving his hands,” saying he “didn’t mean to do that.” Then both teenagers ran from the apartment.

Just hours after the shooting, assistant property manager Ernie Brown, an Army veteran, said he heard the gunshot shortly after midnight, threw on clothes, and rushed next door. Inside, he found Washington slumped in a recliner with a catastrophic head wound, his hands laying in his lap. “I’m ex-military, so I know what a headshot looks like,” Brown told Cowboy State Daily at the time. He also recalled another teenager at the scene repeatedly saying, “I shot him, I shot him,” before fleeing.

Search warrants later uncovered videos and mirror selfies posted to social media the night before the shooting, showing the teenagers and Washington drinking alcohol together. Some images feature one of the suspects posing with what investigators believe was the same handgun used in the killing. Investigators recovered a 9 mm pistol from the living room floor roughly 10 feet from Washington’s body and recovered the bullet after it traveled through the apartment wall into a neighboring unit. Police traced the firearm back to a deceased owner; investigators believe the gun may have been stolen from a vehicle sometime in 2024.

Washington’s sister Shannon Hill told Cowboy State Daily in March that her brother “was the light of every room he walked in.” He died just nine days before his 19th birthday. At the time of the shooting, Brown said management had been warning younger residents about heavy traffic and late-night activity. “We were talking to them yesterday, telling them, ‘You’ve got to quit bringing all this traffic in, because something’s going to go awry,'” he said. “And it sure did. It went awry last night.” Neither suspect has been taken into custody as of this report.