Inset: Chanelle Alvarez (GoFundMe). Background: The area around Chanelle Alvarez’s home in Ogden, Utah, where 16-year-old Hezekiah Plummer allegedly shot and killed the teen (KUTV/YouTube).
A Utah teen who was “known to run away” and living with his 15-year-old girlfriend on and off allegedly executed her inside her home with a single gunshot wound to the head at “close range,” cops say.
Hezekiah Plummer, 16, is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, obstruction of justice and theft of a firearm in connection with the death of Chanelle Alvarez at her home in Ogden, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime.
Plummer claimed that a “robbery” occurred at the residence early Saturday after he showed up around 1 a.m. and “claimed he had nowhere to stay,” the affidavit alleges.
“The victim indicated it would be fine for Plummer to stay and he was allowed into the home,” police say in the charging document.
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A witness living at the residence told investigators that he was asleep upstairs and was awoken at around 3 a.m. by gunfire that “sounded very close,” per the affidavit. He ran to “check on his children” and started to go downstairs when he allegedly encountered Plummer “coming up the staircase with a firearm in his hand.”
Plummer made a statement about a “robbery” happening and mentioned a name of a person who he said “tried to rob them,” according to police. Plummer then fled the residence with the gun and Alvarez was found shot downstairs.
Police say the girl’s mother had purchased a Glock handgun “a few weeks prior” to the shooting, which Plummer allegedly swiped. The mom told investigators she was “awoken” by Plummer in the middle of the night before she left for work around 2:40 a.m., with him looking around her room for a “backpack” that he claimed to have left in there, the affidavit says.
“She indicated it was not in her bedroom and he left,” according to the charging document. “When she awoke to leave for work, Plummer and the victim were in the victim’s bedroom. They were the only ones in the bedroom.”
After the shooting, Alvarez’s mom allegedly found a box that had contained the Glock inside her daughter’s room and the firearm was missing.
“Plummer did not have permission to possess or take the firearm,” the affidavit says, noting how the obstruction of justice charge is related to Plummer allegedly disposing of it after the shooting. “Autopsy revealed that the victim sustained a single gunshot wound to the head and that there was stippling near the wound, indicating the shooter was in close range,” the document adds.
A GoFundMe that was launched for Alvarez’s family describes her death as being “the result of domestic violence,” with cops reporting in the affidavit that the two teens were boyfriend and girlfriend.
“Plummer was known to run away from home and he resided in the home with the victim for substantial periods of time,” police allege. “He kept at least some belongings in the home until he was last made to move out of the home a couple weeks prior.”
Authorities say they later found Plummer in Davis County in possession of several ounces of marijuana and $4,080 in cash, which also led to a drug charge. “Plummer declined to be interviewed by authorities and invoked his rights,” the affidavit says.
The teen is currently being held without bail.
