An Anchorage man was convicted this week of second-degree murder, robbery and misconduct involving a weapon in a 2018 shooting outside a Spenard hotel described by police at the time as a drug deal gone awry.
An Anchorage jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on a charge of first-degree murder and tampering with evidence against Ryan Shane Edwin, who is now 28. The trial spanned five weeks and jurors spent five days deliberating.
Edwin and Dwayne Nelson met David Anthony Welch in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express on Spenard Road in November 2018, a summary of police reports included with the criminal complaint said. Welch, 27, had agreed to sell the men heroin and got into the back of Nelson’s and Edwin’s car behind the hotel, the summary said.
Edwin shot Welch once and he either got out or fell out of the vehicle as the other two men began to leave the scene, it said. Nelson then stopped the vehicle and Edwin got out and forced Welch to give him drugs before shooting him again, prosecutors said.
Welch died at the hospital.
Nelson pleaded guilty in 2022 to manslaughter and was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison followed by five years of probation, said Patty Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Law.
Edwin is scheduled for sentencing in May. He faces between 15 and 99 years in prison.
The state is deciding whether or not to retry him on the two charges on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict, Sullivan said Wednesday.