The 22-year-old accused of stabbing a 14-year-old Riverton boy to death last month faces between 20 years and life in prison if convicted, court documents say.
The stabbing followed a feud on Snapchat, the possible tracking of the 14-year-old via a Snapchat application and a roadside fight involving more than a dozen people, says an evidentiary affidavit filed in the case.
Alejandro R. Behan, 22, faces one count of second-degree murder, which carries a minimum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life.
He told investigators on Friday that the morning of Aug. 23, he retrieved a kitchen knife from a home on Honor Farm Road and went to a fight north of Riverton, says an evidentiary affidavit filed Friday in Riverton Circuit Court and released to Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday. It was written by Fremont County Sheriff’s Detective Anthony Armstrong.
A 14-year-old Riverton boy, Draven Addison, died after being stabbed in the back during the fight, according to court documents and the family’s public statements.
During the fight Behan “observed what he believed was a knife in (Addison’s) back pocket,” the affidavit says, adding that Behan told investigators he “poked” Addison in the back with a knife “to protect his family members.”
Then he threw the knife in a nearby yard, where it was later found, the document says.
The Morning Of …
A male called 911 at about 3:58 a.m. Aug. 23, to say another male had been stabbed and was bleeding from his back, was still breathing, and may have been “jumped.”
Fremont County Sheriff’s Deputy Nate Meeker found the stabbing victim and two more males in a driveway to a house on Honor Farm Road north of Riverton about six minutes later, the document says.
Emergency medical personnel, sheriff’s deputies and Riverton Police Department officers tried to save the stabbed teen’s life, but he was pronounced dead on scene, Armstrong wrote.
The two other people who’d remained in the driveway were a 13-year-old boy and Addison’s twin brother, age 14.
The two teens were separated and placed in separate patrol vehicles.
The 13-year-old told investigators that he and the Addison twins left Eagles hope Transition in Riverton after visiting the twins’ mother, and “walked numerous roads to the current location,” wrote Armstrong.
There was a back-and-forth exchange between the twins’ friend group and another person’s friend group, on Snapchat, discussing a potential fight, the document says.
The 13-year-old said that an SUV pulled up while he and the twins were walking at about 61 Honor Farm Road.
“He believed their location was tracked via SNAPCHAT MAP function,” wrote Armstrong. The SUV stopped in the road and about 12 people got out — and a fight started, the document adds.
On Scene
A Fremont County Coroner’s deputy processed the scene alongside law enforcement.
Investigators noted what Armstrong called “an obvious stab wound” in Addison’s upper back, right quadrant near the spine in the ribcage area – with no other signs of trauma noted.
An autopsy later confirmed that the teen died of that stabbing, wrote the detective.
A video of the fight had surfaced to social media, Armstrong wrote. Investigators sourced that video to a witness’s cellphone.
The witness told investigators that he and other people involved were congregated at a residence on Honor Farm Road that night.
That home was at a different place than the driveway where investigators found Addison, noted Armstrong.
The people left the home to fight and returned to it after the fight, said the witness.
“He admitted to arriving on the fight scene and identified himself on the video,” the detective wrote. The witness said that after he reached the fight location, he handed his cellphone to a female, to record the fight.
With the witness’s consent, investigators downloaded the video of the fight from his phone, says the affidavit.
A juvenile female was also interviewed.
She admitted she’d been at the home on Honor Farm Road and admitted to being personally involved in the physical fight. The video confirms this, says the document.
The girl said Alejandro “Alex” Behan had grabbed a knife from the kitchen of the home before the fight; and after the fight, he said he’d “stabbed a guy” and “threw a knife in the yard,” the affidavit relates.
Investigators interviewed another juvenile (age not given), who lives at the home where the group had congregated before the fight. The document says this juvenile acknowledged he was present before, during after the fight, and that Behan and another youth – age 17 – were at the home on Honor Farm Road before and after the fight.
This juvenile said that “Alex” had grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and that the 17-year-old had a green-handled folding knife, reportedly.
“(The juvenile) admitted to being an active participant in the physical fight,” wrote Armstrong, adding that the youth also identified Behan and the 17-year-old as being in the fight.
Once the fight was over, the youths returned to the home on Honor Farm Road and law enforcement lights flashed in the area, someone turned off the lights in the home so they wouldn’t draw attention, the affidavit relates from the juvenile’s interview.
Behan hid in a closet, the juvenile added.
A canvas (the document doesn’t say by whom) revealed a dark-handled bloody kitchen knife on the edge of a nearby yard.
Then Came Wednesday
Fremont County Sheriff’s personnel asked Casper police to arrest Behan in Casper, on another warrant.
There was already a warrant for Behan’s arrest out of Fremont County before the stabbing incident.
Fremont County Deputy Attorney Jane Juve on July 3 asked for and received a warrant, on her petition to revoke Behan’s probation for a Dec. 4 domestic battery conviction.
Behan had been sentenced to one year of supervised probation after spending 59 days in jail during his prosecution in that case.
But he violated his probation, Juve alleged in her petition, by being arrested for a DUI on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
He was placed on probation through the tribal court, the petition says.
While trying to arrest Behan, Casper police evacuated two businesses late Wednesday afternoon and then negotiated his surrender on second floor of a building.
Behan’s mother, Robin Behan, told a Cowboy State Daily reporter at the scene that Behan was wanted for homicide.
Behan had “gone back home” to Riverton for a visit “and it turns out he was wanted for homicide,” the mother said at the time.
She said she did not know anything about the alleged homicide and was unaware of the charge until that day.
“I thought he was wanted for probation, that’s why the cops were looking for him,” she said. “I got their phone number so I could tell him to call them. By that time the cops came, and a lot of them came.”
“I said, 'I don’t know what you did, but you need to wake up and go,'” she continued. “And I came out and that’s when all the cops were here and they asked me if he was there, and I told them, ‘Yes.'”
She said her son did not surrender and that the officers “had to go in and get him,” but he did not resist them.
Robin Behan said her son was trying to turn his life around and they had been staying at a homeless shelter.
At some point between Wednesday afternoon and Friday afternoon, Behan was transported to Fremont County, then interviewed by law enforcement on Friday.
Behan's domestic battery case gives his address as a home on Honor Farm Road.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
