Left inset: Alyssa Roman (Omaha Police Department). Right inset: Alan Critser (Meredith – Clark Funeral Home). Background: The area near Hanover Circle and Mormon Bridge Road in Omaha, Neb., where Alyssa Roman shot and killed Alan Critser in 2023 (Google Maps).
A Nebraska woman who nearly blew her boyfriend”s head “off his body” with a shotgun in 2023 — later admitting to cops that she was on “LSD” at the time of the slaying — has accepted a plea deal, with prosecutors downgrading her murder charge to manslaughter.
Alyssa K. Roman, 31, pleaded no contest last month for the shooting death of Alan Critser, 33, at a home they shared near Hanover Circle and Mormon Bridge Road in Omaha, according to court records.
Roman admitted to blasting Critser in the upper torso and neck with a shotgun on Dec. 29, 2023, after taking LSD earlier in the day.
Officers were called to the area after receiving a report of a “home invasion” in progress at a different house that Roman had tried entering that evening. They were told “a white female with pink hair wearing only a shirt and no pants” had barged her way into the home and “had to be forcibly removed,” according to Roman’s arrest affidavit. Roman fled and was later caught at her house, “displaying signs of excited delirium,” per the affidavit. Her house turned out to be where Critser’s body was.
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After transporting Roman to the hospital for a medical evaluation, cops spotted “apparent blood” on the walls of the residence and “suspected skull and brain matter” in the hallway at the top of the main staircase, according to the affidavit. They found Critser with an apparent gunshot wound in the main upstairs bedroom. His head was “almost off his body,” according to prosecutors.
A shotgun was found in a “separate upstairs bedroom with women’s pants and underwear apparel placed over the top of the shotgun’s barrel,” the affidavit said.
After her release from the hospital, Roman received her Miranda warning and stated that Critser “did not shoot himself” and that they were the only two individuals present in the home at the time of the shooting. She made “additional incriminating statements” regarding Critser’s shooting death, according to cops, along with comments about being on LSD.
“When asked if she had taken any drugs, she answered affirmatively — that she had taken LSD around noon that day, and was feeling its effects ‘a little,'” a judge’s order said in December 2024.
“The defendant did not appear to be intoxicated, and was relaxed and comfortable, until she was informed that her fiance was deceased,” the order explained. “Then she became hysterical.”
Roman told police she and Critser were having a conversation about “past trauma” leading up to the shooting, per the court documents.
“The defendant professed not to remember anything after,” according to the judge. “While the defendant did confess to feeling the effects of LSD a little, she took the drug at about noon, and her interview did not occur until more than 12 hours later.”
When cops first made contact with Roman, the officers thought it was “odd” to be outside in the cold with nothing but a shirt, according to the judge’s account. “There was snow on the ground,” the judge said.
It was later proven through medical tests that Roman was, in fact, under the influence of drugs.
“By the time the defendant arrived at the hospital, the police had located [Critser’s] dead body,” the judge said.
Roman is due to be sentenced in September.
