Cheyenne Murder A Web Of Conflicting Statements And Admitted Lies

CHEYENNE — Determining what went down in the single-wide in lot 145 of the West Winds mobile home park just after midnight Friday that left a man dead means navigating a convoluted web of conflicting statements and admitted lies.

That’s the picture Laramie County Sheriff’s Office Detective Cpl. Jack Dudley paints in an arrest affidavit for Nathan Pfaff, 19, who has been charged with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting a friend in the head with a .45-caliber handgun.

LCSO deputies responded to a call that someone had been hurt in the home at about 12:14 a.m. Friday and found 18-year-old Ryan Snow dead on a couch in the living room, Dudley says in the affidavit.

“(Snow) had a massive headwound,” the affidavit says. “There was a large amount of blood on the floor beneath his head.”

Just how Snow wound up dead doesn’t seem cut-and-dry.

Pfaff initially told deputies he wasn’t home at the time, but got a call from a female roommate saying Snow had been shot.

An older 49-year-old neighbor who was there drinking with the younger men initially said he saw Pfaff shoot Snow. Later in an interview at the sheriff’s office, he told a different story.

“(He) claimed he was not sure who the shooter was, but that Snow and Pfaff were ‘bickering’ sometime before the shooting,” Dudley wrote.

The roommate, a 21-year-old woman, first told investigators she was sleeping when Snow was shot and that the noise woke her up. Later, she said she was in the kitchen at the time and saw Pfaff holding the gun after the shooting.

The woman “said she was not truthful during her previous interviews,” the affidavit says. “She said on the night of the shooting she was washing the kitchen sink when she heard a gunshot.

“She saw Snow laying on the couch and Pfaff standing on the opposite end of the couch. Pfaff was holding a black gun in his hand.”

Pfaff’s Story Unravels

Investigators started piecing together stories from the various witnesses, which included the older man, female roommate, Snow and Pfaff. Neither the older man nor roommate had been charged in the case as of Wednesday.

When he first talked to investigators, Pfaff detailed how he was in Colorado working most of the day and didn’t return home to the yellow ochre trailer at 505 Williams St. until about 4 p.m.

That’s when he says he started drinking whiskey and beer with the older man, who was already there with Snow. He also said he saw the .45 on the coffee table, but claimed he didn’t know who it belonged to.

But at some point, he left to go to his father’s place and didn’t return to lot 145 until after the shooting and deputies were there.

“He claimed (the roommate) had called him and told him Snow had been shot and that he needed to come back to the residence,” the affidavit says.

Pfaff said that’s when he returned, but video surveillance from a camera pointing toward lot 145 shows him coming and going multiple times between the time he says he left and didn’t return, Dudley wrote.

The roommate also contradicts Pfaff, saying he did leave, but came back sometime between 8:30 and 11 p.m. She said she went to sleep about 10:30 and couldn’t remember if Pfaff was still there.

However, she also later admitted lying about being asleep.

About Going To Father’s

Investigators also talked to Pfaff’s father, who said his son did come over that night, but it was at a time that would’ve been directly after the shooting, not before.

The father said Pfaff called at about 12:15 a.m. saying he wanted to go over there, which was about the same time the 911 call reporting the shooting was made.

“That was the only time Pfaff was at (the father’s) residence that day,” Dudley wrote.

He added that the father said Pfaff has struggled with addiction in the past, “and he may have relapsed, and that was the reason for the visit.”

The Gun

The older friend who came over to drink with Pfaff and Snow said the gun belongs to him, Dudley wrote in the affidavit.

While Pfaff claimed to not know whose gun it was, he said he saw it on the coffee table and had “handled it two days before,” the affidavit says. The friend said he brought it over because Pfaff wanted to buy it from him.

After obtaining a search warrant for the trailer, deputies found the .45 in a holster on the coffee table, Dudley wrote. It was loaded with Hornady auto plus P bullets, and a shell casing of the same make was on the floor near the front door.

Suspected cocaine and “various paraphernalia” also was collected from the home.

Pfaff is being held at the Laramie County Detention Center on a $250,000 bond and is scheduled for a June 27 preliminary hearing.

Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.