CHEYENNE — In a deal with the District Attorney’s office, a 20-year-old has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the June 13 shooting death of an 18-year-old friend at a Laramie County mobile home park.
In return for his guilty plea, a charge of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor will be dropped against Nathan Pfaff for allegedly having sex with a junior high school girl about a month before the killing.
Pfaff also agreed to a presumptive sentence of 25 to 40 years in prison instead of the range of 20 years to life a second-degree murder conviction usually calls for.
Pfaff had already been arrested for the June 13 shooting and was in jail when investigators became aware of the possible sex abuse of a minor, according to an affidavit written by Laramie County Sheriff’s Office Detective Keith Huebner.
A woman apparently in a relationship with Pfaff had called him at the jail, where calls are monitored and recorded, confronting him about having sex with an underage friend who was 14.
Conflicting Stories And Lies
What unraveled as a web of conflicting stories and admitted lies began in the early morning hours of June 13 at the West Winds mobile home park just south of Cheyenne city limits.
The LCSO responded to a call that someone had been hurt at about 12:15 a.m. and arrived to find 18-year-old Ryan Snow dead on a couch in the living room, according to an affidavit of probable cause in Pfaff’s court file.
“(Snow) had a massive head wound,” the affidavit says. “There was a large amount of blood on the floor beneath his head.”
Just how Snow ended up shot with a .45-caliber handgun was initially unclear.
Pfaff, who lived in the home, at first told deputies he wasn’t there at the time but instead got a call from a roommate telling him Snow had been shot.
In a later interview, he told investigators a different story, according to the affidavit.
“(He) claimed he was not sure who the shooter was, but that Snow and Pfaff were ‘bickering’ sometime before the shooting,” the affidavit says.
The roommate, a 21-year-old woman, first told investigators she was sleeping when Snow was shot and that the noise woke her up. Later, she said she was in the kitchen at the time and saw Pfaff holding the gun after the shooting.
The woman “said she was not truthful during her previous interviews,” the affidavit says. “She said on the night of the shooting she was washing the kitchen sink when she heard a gunshot.
“She saw Snow laying on the couch and Pfaff standing on the opposite end of the couch. Pfaff was holding a black gun in his hand.”
Video surveillance from a camera on another mobile home pointed toward Pfaff’s mobile home also poked holes in his claims about when he came and left the residence.
About That Dropped Charge
While in jail awaiting trial on the second-degree murder charge in Snow’s death, investigators learned of Pfaff’s alleged abuse of a teen girl, according to Huebner’s affidavit.
In a phone call that lasted about an hour, a young woman who seemed to be in a relationship with Pfaff confronted him about the alleged encounter with the junior high girl, the affidavit says.
“(She) confronted Pfaff about allegedly having sexual relations with one of her friends,” the document says, adding the friend at the time was 14 and in junior high school.
The encounter reportedly happened during a night of partying and drinking that ended up at Pfaff’s home, the affidavit said.
When asked by the woman point blank if he had sex with her, Huebner’s affidavit says Pfaff replied, “Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure you already know the answer to the question.”
He also dismissed having sex with a minor five years younger than himself.
“It wasn’t important,” he reportedly said on the jail call. “It’s a non-important subject.”
That’s not how the alleged victim remembered the encounter, according to the affidavit.
She told investigators that Pfaff knew her age and described the encounter they were intoxicated when Pfaff “began touching her and pressured her into going to his bedroom to have sex.”
She said she went because she was “fearful of Pfaff and didn’t know what else to do.”
District Court Judge Peter Froelicher accepted the plea agreement Dec. 29 just before Pfaff’s trial was to begin on Dec. 30.
He also ordered a presentence report and set Pfaff’s sentencing for March 19.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
