16-year-old accused in Reardan shooting charged as adult; court docs shed more light on fatal event

The 16-year-old boy accused of accidentally shooting and killing a 15-year-old last month in Reardan is being charged as an adult, but that could change.

Koedi White faces first-degree manslaughter and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm charges for the death of Shadrach Hall-Turner.

State law dictates that 16- or 17-year-old children are charged as adults if the charge is a “serious violent offense,” which first-degree manslaughter is considered.

“That doesn’t mean they have to stay as an adult,” Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Adam Walser said. “We can still resolve that in juvenile court. It just originally begins in Superior Court as an adult and then if we want to remand back to juvenile court, that’s a discretionary thing that the prosecutor can do. We haven’t obviously made a decision on that yet.”

Walser said juvenile court sentencing ranges are generally significantly shorter.

The charges stem from the late afternoon of Feb. 22, when White, Hall-Turner and three other teen boys were hanging out and playing video games in the basement of a home at 150 W. Summit Ave., according to court documents.

At one point, the gun fired and Hall-Turner was shot. One of the boys called 911.

A Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived at the home within two minutes and attempted CPR on Hall-Turner, whom the boys helped get outside the home. Reardan Police Chief Andy Manke said no adults were home.

Hall-Turner died at the scene and White, who declined to speak with police, was arrested, according to documents.

The bullet struck Hall-Turner in the front of the neck and exited his back, according to the autopsy in court records. The bullet had not been recovered, documents say.

The boy who called 911 told first responders that he and Hall-Turner were victims of a drive-by shooting, documents say. He later retracted the statement, saying he and the four boys were playing video games in the basement at one of the boy’s homes when he heard a loud “pop.”

When he looked up, he saw White had a handgun and Hall-Turner had been shot. He said White did not intentionally shoot Hall-Turner.

Hall-Turner said, “Dude you shot me,” to which White replied, “I didn’t mean to,” the witness said. Hall-Turner repeated, “I think you shot me,” and White replied again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” the boy told police.

The boy said Hall-Turner then stood up and walked. The boy said Hall-Turner “started doing a thing and shook his fists” while the boys helped him outside.

Another teen said White brought a gun to the boy’s house and had it out while the others were playing video games. He said he heard the gun fire, saw White with the gun and discovered Hall-Turner had been shot, court records say.

The boy who was with White said White told him Hall-Turner tossed the gun to White and the gun hit the floor, causing it to fire and strike Hall-Turner. A deputy said that was not “feasible” based on the evidence.

The boy said he and White panicked because they did not want to get in trouble. He said they went to the Reardan Store and a girl picked them up and took them to the home of White’s grandmother, where he also lives.

Police found a Taurus .38 Special revolver in the grandmother’s room, which is believed to be the gun White discharged, killing Hall-Turner, documents say.

A deputy stated the boys’ drawn diagrams of the scene showed White standing by the door and Hall-Turner seated on a bed about 5 feet away when the gun fired.

One of the boys said he heard something fall from Hall-Turner’s shirt and hit the floor after Hall-Turner had been shot. The deputy said it could have been a bullet. The boy said he tried to clean up the crime scene after they took Hall-Turner upstairs.

Another boy said during the interviews they all knew the gun had been brought to the home, and that White said he and another boy had both fired two shots from it before they got to the house. The boy said they all handled the gun except for one of the teens. He said Hall-Turner pointed the gun at White and White pointed it at Hall-Turner, “both of them being stupid.”

The girl who gave White and the other teen a ride after the shooting told police in a written statement that she also gave the two boys a ride from White’s grandmother’s home to the Summit Avenue home prior to the shooting.

She wrote she arrived at the grandmother’s home around 3 p.m., or about 1 hour , 45 minutes before the shooting was reported, to take the two boys to Reardan. She said one boy was “high on weed” and White “wasn’t visibly high.”

She said she drove to the Reardan Store, per one boy’s request to get snacks. When the boy left the store, Hall-Turner and another boy were following him. The girl dropped the four boys off at 3:15 p.m. at the Summit Avenue home.

Shortly before 5 p.m., the girl declined a call from White, the girl wrote. About 10 minutes later, she messaged White asking why he called.

White replied that it was an “emergency,” and she agreed to pick the two boys up at the Reardan Store and drive them to the grandmother’s house.

The girl said White told her that someone told him Hall-Turner had been shot. She wrote White looked “devastated” on the drive back to the grandmother’s home. The grandmother then drove the two boys to the police department.

The girl wrote she drove back to Reardan to give one of the other boys a ride to a Medical Lake gas station. She said the teen got out of her truck and sat in someone else’s car for a few minutes. She wrote she and the boy then headed back to Reardan.

Police requested a warrant to search the boy’s backpack, which was left in the girl’s truck, for evidence of an attempt to conceal the crime scene, documents say.