March 14, 2023 |
Photo – Wanted Poster of Luke Young – Courtesy Natrona County Sheriff’s Office
One smalltime fentanyl dealer from Casper is headed to jail for a longtime after pleading guilty to killing his two accomplices along a state highway near the Natrona County Airport.
Luke Thomas Young pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and one of aggravated assault on March 3, according to court documents in the case. Young stood accused of killing two friends, Acacia Colvin and Kameron Young-Johnson, with a 40-caliber handgun on busy Highway 20-26 outside Casper.
Young also pointed the pistol at a motorcyclist, who was an eyewitness at the scene of the roadside executions while it was happening.
The affidavit filed in his case states that Young admitted to spending most of the day of August 9 traveling with Colvin and Young-Johnson in a red Honda, delivering fentanyl to communities around Wyoming. The scene in the car was tense as Young quarreled with his accomplices.
Sometime around 11 p.m., Young shot and killed the driver Young-Johnson. He shot Colvin, who had exited the car, and begged her killer to spare her life.
The motorcyclist, identified as Kyle Stalkup of Casper, had pulled over to the side of the road after sensing trouble. When Johnson, standing outside the car, pointed the gun at Stalkup, the biker “dumped the clutch” and peeled away from the scene. Stalkup told investigators that he saw a dead man slumped over the steering wheel of the Honda and then heard five shots fired as he sped off.
Arriving later at the crime scene, Natrona County Deputies found Young-Johnson dead with a single gunshot to his head. A 9-millimeter handgun was found on his person. Colvin was found face down on the ground, bled out. She had been shot five times.
Police found trace elements of both fentanyl and methamphetamine in the red Honda.
Young fled the scene on foot, leaving his drivers license in the car. He was apprehended the next day, after being spotted jumping fences during his getaway.
Citing phone text records, authorities said Johnson and his accomplices had a plan to deliver drugs to the Basin area. The records show Young told one buyer that he had a large supply of fentanyl pills to sell.
According to his plea deal with the Natrona County prosecutor, Young will spend the rest of his life in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins.
