Print edition: 
EL DORADO — A judge ordered an Augusta man to stand trial on second-degree murder charges in the shooting death of a teenage girl last month.
Butler County District Judge Charles Hart ruled Friday that the state showed enough evidence during Morgan Jarvi's preliminary hearing for the case to proceed to trial. Hart set trial for March 30.
Jarvi pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder after his lawyer, Alice Osburn, asked the judge to rule Andrea Young's death an accident.
Ultimately, a jury will decide whether Jarvi unintentionally killed Young while acting recklessly "under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life."
Young was shot and killed during a party at Jarvi's house where teenagers had been drinking.
"It was a freak accident," said Robert Bushell, a friend of Jarvi's who was at the house that night.
But prosecutor Darrin Devinney argued that the statements of several teenagers showed the recklessness needed for the murder charge.
Police said Young was killed by a shot from a 9mm handgun, which pierced a column and hit her as she stood in the kitchen by the basement stairs.
Several of the teens said Jarvi had been walking around the house that night carrying an AK-47 and a 9mm handgun.
The girls who testified said they were scared. Two said they asked him to put the guns away. Several said they left the house because they were afraid of the guns.
One girl said that after the shot, she saw Jarvi run out of the house.
"It was an accident, an accident — call 911," the 16-year-old remembered Jarvi yelling.
Two of the girls and a boy described some of the teens as becoming sick from drinking beer and vodka, which they said Jarvi bought.
Jarvi had apparently been drinking, too, witnesses testified.
Bushell described Jarvi as "having a buzz on." One girl described Jarvi as "tipsy."
"Morgan Jarvi knew all the risks," Devinney argued to the judge. "He knew guns and alcohol don't mix."
