RUPERT, Idaho -- A magistrate judge has ruled there isn't enough evidence to charge a 24-year-old Burley man with second-degree murder in the Dec. 17 shooting death of a passenger in his pickup as he and three others drove home from a bar.
A back seat passenger, Kaylee Jones, testified that Michael Jared Thompson pulled the gun and threatened to shoot front-seat passenger Kristin Crull and 21-year-old Michael Kenneth Blair in an effort to end their bickering.
Jones said Blair told Thompson: "If you're going to shoot someone, it might as well be me." She said Blair slid over, placed the gun's barrel in his mouth and his hands over Thompson's hand. The gun went off.
Minidoka County prosecutors filed an amended charge of involuntary manslaughter on Wednesday.
