After getting the short end of a fight at a rowdy warehouse party on March 15, Chad Zurfluh left and came back with a couple of friends, aiming to fight again, this time with better odds.

But police say one of the friends brought a gun, and when partiers locked them out, the friend fired into the closed building, penetrating the wall and door and hitting three people inside, killing one.

According to investigators, the shooter fled to Texas and, in a phone conversation with police, blamed Zurfluh. But after dozens of interviews and two weeks of sorting things out, the Anchorage District Attorney's office on Saturday charged Oscar J. Lajoie, 29, with second-degree murder for the death of Dimond High School student Colton Crow.

One of the blind-fired bullets hit Crow in the head, according to the charges filed in court Saturday by prosecutor Aaron Sperbeck.

Crow was declared brain dead the next day and subsequently died, Sperbeck said.

Two other partiers were hit but not seriously injured. Robert Lee, 21, was wounded in his right thigh and Alexandru Hildan, 22, was shot in the right hand, according to Sperbeck. They were treated and released from the hospital.

Lajoie appeared in court Saturday afternoon to hear the charges against him: one count of second-degree murder and two counts of first-degree assault. Bail was set at $500,000.

According to the charging documents and a court database, Lajoie has a record that includes past arrests for weapons and drug violations and driving while intoxicated.

Sperbeck's narrative of the investigation that led to the charges against Lajoie said he first claimed, in a phone call from Texas, that Zurfluh had taken his Glock .45-caliber pistol while both men were at Lajoie's home that night and "bolted" with it. Lajoie said Zurfluh later claimed he "just scared some kids at the party with the gun," then threw it away.

However, Lajoie's story kept changing and other witnesses identified him as the shooter, the charges said.

The trouble all started when Zurfluh tried to break up a fight at the party, held at a warehouse in the 4900 block of Homer Drive, and ended up getting smacked around and thrown out by several men, some of whom assaulted him as he left, he told police. He called his sister to pick him up at a gas station at Tudor and Old Seward, and she showed up with her boyfriend, Lajoie.

Zurfluh figured he could take his assailants in "a fair fight" with Lajoie's help, so the group returned to the warehouse.

The partiers saw them coming and locked the door. Zurfluh told investigators he had his hand on the doorknob when shots rang out from behind. "He looked to his right and said he saw O. Lajoie shooting at the door," the charges said.

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