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A jury in Pierce County Superior Court found Skylar Nemetz not guilty of first degree murder but convicted him of first degree manslaughter in his wife's shooting, leading to a 162-month sentence.

Nemetz was a 20-year-old US Army soldier stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. His wife, Tarrah Danielle Nemetz, who went by Danielle, was 19. They had not been married long and lived in an apartment in the 8500 block of 82nd Street SW in Lakewood, Washington. Court records described Nemetz as an experienced firearms user who owned 13 firearms and had firearms safety training in and out of the military.

On October 16, 2014, Nemetz returned from a military training operation. Danielle was shot once in the back of the head while sitting in a chair at a computer in the apartment. The weapon was a DPMS AR-15 that Nemetz had bought for her and left for security while he was away. Responding officers, including the police chief of nearby Steilacoom, found her unresponsive with no pulse. Nemetz was at the scene saying it was an accident, and one officer testified that Nemetz said he shook the rifle and it fired. Prosecutors alleged he found alcohol that another man had bought for his wife, believed she had been unfaithful and became angry. The defense said the shooting was an accident.

Nemetz was arrested at the apartment and taken to the Lakewood Police Department for questioning. The recorded interview was described as running roughly four hours and began with a rights advisement, after which Nemetz agreed to talk. He told detectives he was putting the rifle away, believed it was unloaded and never meant to hurt his wife. Detectives challenged gaps and changes in his account, including where the rifle was held, whether he pulled the trigger and what he did after the shot. In the audible portion, he said at one point that he killed his wife and did not mean to murder her. The captions show one rights advisement at the start but do not establish whether the full recording covers more than one interview session.

A firearms examiner testified that the rifle worked as designed, its safety functioned properly and it would not fire without the trigger being pulled. The State charged Nemetz on October 22, 2014, with first degree murder with a firearm enhancement and filed a corrected information on December 31, 2015. Nemetz posted bail on October 31, 2014, and was placed on electronic home monitoring.

The trial began January 21, 2016, before Judge Jack Nevin. Nemetz testified that he was trying to clear the rifle, did something wrong and it went off. On March 3, 2016, the jury found him not guilty of first degree murder and guilty of the lesser included offense of first degree manslaughter. Jurors unanimously found that he was armed with a firearm. The case was tried in a civilian state court, not a military court. Danielle's family said after the verdict that they were not happy with the manslaughter conviction but had to accept it.

On March 25, 2016, the judge refused to impose a sentence below the standard range and sentenced Nemetz to 102 months plus 60 months for the firearm enhancement. The 162-month total was reported as the maximum, about 13 and a half years. Nemetz said at sentencing that he was reckless and negligent and would pay for it. On April 10, 2018, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division II, upheld the firearm enhancement and ordered credit for his time on electronic home monitoring. The Washington Supreme Court denied review. On July 14, 2020, the Court of Appeals denied his personal restraint petition, which argued that the sentencing judge had not properly weighed his youth.

The video is a police interview-room recording running about 292 minutes. It presents the interview itself and opens with a short narrated introduction naming the people involved.

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Part 2 of 5 of the recording described above.

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Part 3 of 5 of the recording described above.

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Part 4 of 5 of the recording described above.

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Part 5 of 5 of the recording described above.