The man accused in the Dec. 30, 2019 shooting death in Fayette pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Wednesday morning, August 19, in Howard County court. Alfredo Demario Hicks, Jr., 22, now faces decades in prison.

Hicks appeared with public defender Robert Fleming before Judge Scott Hayes. In addition to second-degree murder, he also entered guilty pleas to charges of armed criminal action, an unclassified felony, along with witness tampering and receiving stolen property, both Class D felonies.

During questioning from Judge Hayes, Hicks claimed the shooting was done “in self-defense.” He also disagreed with the way the charge of witness tampering was worded. Originally the charge read that Hicks pointed a loaded gun at the witness and told her not to speak to law enforcement. Fleming asserted the facts were inconsistent with Hicks’s side of the story. The verbiage of the charge was amended to state that the threat was made “while possessing a loaded firearm.”

Hicks was arrested Dec. 31, the day after he admittedly shot John Turner in the head during an alleged drug deal inside Turner’s blue Toyota Corolla on Hackberry Street in Fayette. According to testimony at a March 3, 2020, probable cause hearing, moments after he shot Turner, Hicks then threatened Turner’s girlfriend, who was in the car at the time of the murder, and told her not to speak to police. He then fled the scene. A manhunt ensued involving officers from the Fayette Police Department, Howard County Sheriff’s Department, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and the Boone County Sheriff’s Department.

A detective with the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, Anthony Perkins, testified during the March 3 hearing that Hicks admitted during an interview in the Howard County Jail that he “killed” Turner. In that interview, Hicks said he shot Turner in the head with a small black Smith & Wesson .380 handgun.

Initially, Hicks told investigators that he had thrown the gun, along with the pants he was wearing at the time of the murder, into a lake. However, during an interview the following day, he admitted that the gun was actually hidden in a piece of clothing between an air mattress and a wall at the residence in which he was staying on West Davis Street in Fayette. That’s where police recovered the gun.

Perkins told the court that the gun was stolen and that Hicks had admitted that he stole it from a vehicle at a used car lot in Fayette weeks prior.

Audrain County Sheriff’s Detective William Femrite testified during the probable cause hearing that he performed an extraction on Hicks’s mobile phone. On it, he found internet searches for “can police trace .380 bullets,” whether it is better to “shoot a .380 close up or far away” and “how to teach yourself to drive.” Another search query just six hours after the killing asked how much prison time a person would get for a homicide.

Femrite also told the court that during a Facebook chat, allegedly between Hicks and another man, Hicks, using the social media alias “HGE Mario,” admitted that he “killed someone.” Hicks’s middle name is Demario.

Turner was not local to Howard County. He hailed from southeast Missouri and was last known to be living in nearby Columbia. Hicks, while not native to Fayette, was reportedly living with family members on West Davis Street here.

During Wednesday’s proceeding, Hicks agreed to a charge bargain offered by the prosecution. A plea of guilty to second-degree murder removes any possibility of a death penalty sentence. Hicks was originally charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Howard County Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Riekhof said that Turner’s family was involved in the decision to reduce the murder charge to second-degree. Family members are expected to be present during sentencing.

Second-degree murder brings a range of punishment of 10 to 30 years in prison while the charge of armed criminal action requires a minimum of no less than three years of prison time in addition to the murder sentence. For the charges of witness tampering and receiving stolen property—in this case, the .380 handgun—Hicks faces a range of punishments of one to seven years in prison, or up to one year in the county jail, and/or a fine of up to $10,000.

Sentencing will be left up to the court. A sentencing assessment report has been ordered. Hicks will learn his punishment when he returns to court on Oct. 7. In the meantime, he remains in custody at the Howard County Jail.