Darkmatter: Murdered Over Marijuana

Friday, October 19, 2018

Murdered Over Marijuana

David Grunwald

He was born on January 8th, 2000 at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska to Benjamin J. Grunwald and Edith M. Grunwald.
He had an intelligent sense of humor and loved life and his family.
David attended Mat-Su Career and Tech High School.
He was last heard from on November 13th 2016.
David was 16 years old at the time of his disappearance.
He called his parents to stay out a little later than usual in order to get his girlfriend home safely.
David dropped his girlfriend off at 8 p.m. and then decided to go hang out with 16 year old Erick Almandinger.
There was an old camper trailer parked behind Almandinger's house.
Almandinger invited David and some other friends over to smoke some marjuana and drink alcohol.
At some point David and Almandinger started arguing.
Almandinger accused David of smoking all of his Marjuana.
Almandinger had brought along a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun and the boys used it to bludgeon David.
Then the other boys at the party, and Almandinger loaded David into his Ford Bronco he had driven there.
David was slipping in and out of conciousness as they drove him to the Knik River, where one of the boys, Austin Barrett, shot David and killed him.
Then the boys burned the bronco and left and went back to the trailer.
They then stripped the carpet and burned it in the yard.
They then used bleach in attempts to clean the blood splatters on the walls.
When David didn't return home by 10:00 p.m. his family began to worry.
About 11:30 p.m., David's parents called the Alaska State Police and reported him missing.
Police set up patrols along the Parks and Glenn Highways, but found no trace of David.
Police conducted interviews with David's friends.
Almandinger told then he had not seen David in weeks.
He did however, tell investigators that David did drop off a mutual friend the night of his disappearance.
Police obtained a search warrant for Almandinger's home.
When they searched the trailer they were overwhelmed by the scent of bleach.
Testing and analysis inside the trailer indicated the presence of blood.
Cellphone records showed that Almandinger had been in the area David's truck had been found.
The blood and cellphone records together were enough to charge Almandinger.
Police learned through interviews with David's and Almandinger's that Almandinger had confessed to at least one other boy that he and another person killed David.

On December 2nd, police spoke with, Dominic Johnson, one of the other boys that had been in the trailer the night of David's disappearance and he led them to David's body.
David was frozen to the ground and covered in a thin layer of snow.