The King County Superior Court sentenced a 28-year-old man on May 10 after a jury trial convicted him in an October 2018 homicide case in Des Moines near Kent.
Jurors found 28-year-old Yourhighness Jeramiah Bolar of Renton guilty of two felony charges, including murder in the second degree and unlawful possession of a firearm for the shooting death of 37-year-old Andrew Carter in Des Moines on Oct. 28, 2018.
Judge LeRoy McCullough sentenced Bolar to 23 years in prison at his sentencing hearing on May 10.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Des Moines Police Officers were dispatched on Oct. 28, 2018 at approximately 9:15 p.m. to a parking lot located in the 27000 block of Pacific Highway South. Police and medics discovered Carter, deceased in the parking lot between Bartell Drugs and Planet Fitness with gunshot wounds.
According to the affidavit, exterior security cameras captured footage of Carter being shot after he approached the front of a vehicle and the driver’s side window. The suspect vehicle fled the parking lot southbound following the shooting.
Law enforcement arrested Bolar after he checked in at a Department of Corrections office in Renton on Nov. 6, 2018.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, in an interview with Des Moines police, Bolar said he became scared after seeing Carter approach his vehicle and “had a feeling that he was sent there to kill him or get his car.”
Bolar said he grabbed his 9mm gun out of the glove compartment and shot Carter twice prior to driving from the scene back to Renton, and arranged to have the gun thrown in the ocean and the vehicle sold to “some Mexicans” in Oregon.
McCullough sentenced Bolar to 18 years in prison for the murder in the second degree charge and five years and 7 months for the unlawful possession of a firearm charge, with the sentences for both charges to run concurrently. The court added a consecutive five years to Bolar’s sentence as a result of a firearms enhancement, totalling to 23 years.
Bolar will carry out his sentence in the custody of the Washington Department of Corrections.
McCullough additionally ordered an additional three years of community custody for Bolar following his confinement sentence.
Members of Bolar’s and Carter’s families and friends and more attended Bolar’s sentencing hearing. The court denied the defense’s motion for a new trial at the hearing.