Rajion Vu pleads guilty to manslaughter of Brandon Lopez

CASPER, Wyo. — A lifelong Casper resident on Thursday pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of another man in February.

Rajion Vu, 25, entered the change of plea before Natrona County District Court Judge Kerri Johnson.

The charge of manslaughter came from a second amended criminal investigation, which changed the earlier charge of the second-degree murder of Brandon Arguello Lopez, Vu’s defense attorney Keith Nachbar said.

Manslaughter — defined in Wyoming law as killing human being without malice, expressed or implied and involuntarily but recklessly — is punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment.

The sentence of manslaughter would run concurrently with Vu’s guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance — in this case marijuana — which is punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The plea agreement did not have any recommendations for a sentence, which would be determined by the judge at the sentencing hearing.

Nachbar asked the court to schedule up to a day for that hearing because of the evidence he wanted to present. Vu has said the shooting was in self-defense. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Grill added that the sentencing hearing could be long because Lopez’s family and others may want to submit victim impact statements. Johnson said a sentencing hearing that long may need to be set possibly three months from now.

The judge accepted the plea and ordered a presentence investigation. She added that this is a cold plea, meaning if Vu violated any law or refused to cooperate with the presentence investigation, she could sentence him on both counts and those sentences would be served consecutively.

Vu remains in detention on a $750,000 cash or surety bond.

The case started on Feb. 1, when court records say Vu shot Lopez in the the back as he was running away from an apparent drug-deal-turned-robbery.

On May 21, Vu pleaded not guilty and the judge denied a motion to reduce his bond.

During the investigation, law enforcement seized $493,303 in shrink-wrapped currency from a safe at a home where Vu was staying after the shooting. The state has filed claim to that money, saying it was accumulated and used in the furtherance of the alleged marijuana-dealing conspiracy.

During Vu’s arraignment, Nachbar said they will fight the forfeiture claim.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Blain Nelson argued during the arraignment that the nearly half-million dollars Vu had in the safe might not represent all of his assets. He said Vu had disposed of evidence, including the gun that fired the bullet that killed Lopez, after leaving the state on the night of the shooting. 

After Thursday’s hearing, Grill said she did not know the status of the forfeiture matter.

During the investigation after the shooting, the medical examiner indicated that Lopez may have been hunched over when shot, with the bullet entering his upper back and lodging in his head, according to state filings in the case. Police say he was found lying in the gutter.

No weapons were found at the scene, Nelson said. Witnesses who were with Lopez earlier in the night told police that Lopez had asked to borrow a firearm for protection for someone he called “Mike.” They said Lopez had “a beef” with “Mike” and was going to meet him later in the evening to purchase “something.”

The witnesses said they knew “Mike” to be Rajion Vu because Lopez had shown them the Snapchat conversation between them. They had been with Lopez at a residence on the 1400 block of West 15th on the night of Feb 1. They said they had seen Vu’s Snapchat profile on Lopez’s phone and heard him reference “Rajion” before leaving the house in an agitated manner, according to the affidavit.

One witness went outside with Lopez and saw him get into a white vehicle with two other people inside. The witness said he walked around the block before getting a “gut feeling” that something bad was about to happen. He said he saw Lopez running away from the vehicle while the vehicle’s passenger leaned out the window and fired three shots.

Vu’s girlfriend, Angelina Smith, told police she was in the vehicle when Vu met with Lopez, whom she knew only as “the man” that Vu was going to “help out,” which she understood to mean selling marijuana. 

She said that when “the man” was reaching into his pocket for his wallet, he said something to the effect of “I have a f—ing gun and I’ll f—ing shoot you,” according to her statement to police.

Casper police responded to the area shortly after 10 p.m., finding Lopez unconscious in the gutter. He was lying on top of a white box containing several individually wrapped packaged of marijuana. Lopez was taken to the hospital and died on Feb. 3.

Three .380 caliber bullet casings were recovered from the scene. Officers also found Lopez’s cellphone, which contained Snapchat messages between Vu and Lopez. It also showed that Lopez had sent Vu a ping location on Google for the meet-up.

Police reviewed security footage from the area and identified a white passenger car leaving the West 15th Street area at a high rate of speed. Investigators learned Vu owned a white 2021 Subaru Impreza and lived in Evansville.

While police were surveilling the home on Feb. 5, one of Vu’s family members arrived to pick up a pet carrier. Police tracked the vehicle to Bar Nunn, where they believe Vu had been staying with family since the shooting.

Smith and Vu were arrested when police pulled over a vehicle that left the Bar Nunn residence. 

A warrant executed on Vu’s residence in Evansville revealed suspected marijuana, packaging matching the drug packaging at the homicide scene, and Lopez’s Snapchat name written on a sticky note, according to the affidavit.