The Kent man accused of killing 12-year-old Alajawan Brown in Skyway in late April pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder Thursday.

Curtis John Walker, 35, is being held in the high-security county jail in downtown Seattle on $5 million bail. His next court appearance is July 15.

If Walker is convicted, prosecutors will ask for a prison term of between 35 and 45 years.

Charges were filed against Walker, a felon convicted of a number of crimes, on June 17. That day county Sheriff Sue Rahr and county Prosecutor Dan Satterberg outlined the public’s criminal case against Walker.

“This child was shot by a violent felon,” Satterberg said. “This is a case that screams out for justice.”

Initially, investigators thought that Alajawan was killed by a stray bullet fired during a violent argument at the Cedar Village Apartments on April 29.

But based on interviews, prosecutors now charge that Walker targeted Alajawan because he thought the boy, whose large stature made him seem more mature, was involved in the shooting of his friend at the apartment complex.

Walker, who fled the shooting scene on South 129th Street near Martin Luther King Jr. Way, was tied to the gun that shot Alajawan through DNA found on the gun’s trigger and bullets.

The gun was among three tossed into a field in southwest Renton by the driver of the car in which Walker fled. A Renton Police officer found the guns, after being alerted by a witness to a hit-and-run accident involving the getaway car and a security guard at a nearby bank facility who saw the driver in the field.