Attempted murder charge for assault

CASWELL — A man is facing attempted murder charges after allegedly pointing a shotgun at his girlfriend’s chest and firing, but missing her.

A Palmer grand jury formally charged Jeramie Sharp on Aug. 24 relating to incidents from July 29 described in paperwork Alaska State Trooper Kevin Blanchette filed in court.

According to Blanchette, troopers first heard about the incident at 10:21 p.m. Friends had driven the woman and her two kids to someplace safe after a fight with Sharp.

Another call came in three hours later. Sharp had apparently found the woman and was assaulting her in a motor home on the caller’s property.

By the time troopers arrived, everyone had left the motor home; Sharp fled after the landowner told him he’d called troopers and the woman fled with her kids, fearing he might return. Troopers found them hiding in a nearby abandoned house.

The woman told Blanchette she’d been talking to Sharp and told him “that she no longer had feelings for him and that she was leaving him,” Blanchette wrote.

She called a friend to pick her up.

“Soon after placing the phone call, Sharp stated, ‘If I can’t have you, then no one can.’ He then grabbed the shotgun and pushed (her) onto the bed as the children watched from a distance,” Blanchette wrote.

Sharp pushed the barrel into the woman’s chest. She got up. He hit her, pushed her back down, pumped the shotgun and put it against her chest.

“As she observed him place his finger on the trigger, she grabbed the barrel and pushed it to the side of her as the gun discharged, narrowly missing her head,” Blanchette wrote.

She tried to get up again and Sharp punched her and pushed her back down, again pressing the gun into her chest. This time she kicked it out of the way and it went off, according to Blanchette’s affidavit.

That’s when she grabbed the children and bolted out of there, just in time to meet her friend in the driveway for a ride to the motor home.

“Sharp located her and her children … several hours after the original incident. She and the children were sleeping in the motor home,” according to Blanchette.

Sharp allegedly put the shotgun to her neck this time and also punched her in the face, head, neck arms and chest.

Troopers also talked to one of the children, a 5-year-old girl.

“She stated that ‘Daddy (Sharp) tried to shoot mommy. He hit me in the face because I was in the way,’” according to Blanchette’s affidavit.

According to jail records, Sharp had made bail and been released from the Mat-Su Pre-Trial facility just five days before the reported assault.

Court records show he has an open assault case that was filed in May 2011. He also has convictions for theft in 1997 and forgery in 1998.

Sharp has not been arrested in the assault case, according to court records, where an active arrest warrant is still in his file. Blanchette wrote that soon after the assault, troopers tried to find Sharp at the homes of various acquaintances but came up short.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.