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A soldier stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord was stabbed to death early on Oct. 5, 2013, after a roadside confrontation between two groups of soldiers in Lakewood, Washington, according to Pierce County prosecutors and Army officials.

Spc. Tevin Geike, 20, of Summerville, South Carolina, was walking along Pacific Highway Southwest with two friends around 2:30 a.m. when a car carrying several soldiers stopped nearby, prosecutors said. Words were exchanged and four men got out of the car, leading to a tense standoff that began to ease once both sides realized everyone involved was on active duty, according to investigators.

As the two groups were separating, one of the men, Pvt. Jeremiah Hill, then 23, of Chicago, grabbed Geike from behind and stabbed him once in the chest, prosecutors said. An autopsy found the wound cut through a rib and pierced Geike's heart. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hill was arrested and charged with first degree murder. Two other soldiers who had been in the car, Pfc. Cedarium Johnson, 21, of Tyler, Texas, and Spc. Ajoni Runnion-Bareford, 21, of Islesboro, Maine, were accused of throwing the knife into roadside brush and washing blood out of the car, then parking it away from their barracks to avoid detection. Both were charged with rendering criminal assistance.

Investigators initially looked into the stabbing as a possible hate crime after witnesses said a racial remark was directed at Geike, who was white, in the moments before the confrontation. After interviewing those involved, authorities said they did not believe race was a motivating factor in the killing.

At Hill's court-martial in April 2015, he testified that Geike had cut his hand with a knife during the struggle and said he stabbed Geike because he still considered him a threat. A military panel rejected the premeditated murder charge but convicted Hill of unpremeditated murder on April 22, 2015, and sentenced him the same day to 45 years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of his pay.

Johnson was later convicted of obstructing the Army's investigation and sentenced to up to nine months' confinement after testifying against Hill under a plea agreement. Runnion-Bareford pleaded guilty in Pierce County Superior Court to first degree rendering criminal assistance, telling the court in a written statement that he "took the knife and threw it from the car." He was sentenced to 12 months in jail, with credit for the 308 days he had already served.