Paper: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Title: 'I am able to get on with my life' - NO MURDER: Averill freed from jail
                                    after Mush Inn shooting called self defense.
Author: LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
Staff
Date: March 15, 2007
Page:
                                    B1
 
A man charged with murder and jailed after a Feb. 24 shooting at the Mush Inn appears to have been acting in self
                                    defense, and charges against him have been dropped.Rodney Averill, 29, was freed from jail after second-degree murder and
                                    manslaughter charges were dismissed at a March 6 hearing, Anchorage District Attorney Keri Brady said Wednesday.
 

                                    
Prosecutors did not take the case to a grand jury, and the defense asked for a hearing to dismiss the matter. The state
                                    did not object.
 
 
Witnesses all said the man who was killed -- David Hubbard -- lunged at Averill, Brady said.
                                    Plus, the investigation found that Hubbard may have been trying to rob Averill, she wrote in a court pleading.
 
 
"I
                                    feel good that I am not in jail and I am able to get on with my life," Averill said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I
                                    am not happy the man died," He said he's glad to return to his family and hopes to regain his job as a cook.
 
 
A
                                    criminal records database indicates Hubbard is a convicted murderer from the state of Washington, Brady said, although she
                                    didn't have details of that case. Averill said he didn't know that.
 
 
The shooting occurred during a midnight scuffle
                                    at the Mush Inn motel, located north of the Glenn Highway between Fairview and Mountain View.
 
 
Averill said he
                                    didn't know Hubbard before that night.
 
 
According to the charging document,  Averill and others were partying
                                    in a room at the motel. Over the course of the evening, Averill bought over $1,000 worth of cocaine, according to the charging
                                    document. A woman named "Sammie," later identified by police as Samantha Tuttle, 23, was with them.
 
 
Tuttle left
                                    for a while, then returned with Hubbard and another man. Hubbard accused Averill of taking Tuttle's wallet, the charging document
                                    said.
 
 
A witness told police that Hubbard kept trying to punch Averill, that they fell onto a bed and he heard
                                    a gunshot.
 
 
Averill called 911 and reported he had shot a man who broke into the room and tried to take his belongings.
                                    He said Wednesday that Hubbard was beating him up.
 
 
"I was scared to the point of just pulling the trigger at
                                    that point," Averill said. "I tried to keep from that happening for as long as I could. I didn't want to do it. That's not
                                    something anyone should do to anyone else, which is take their life."
 
 
The police haven't been able to find Tuttle
                                    to hear her version of events, Brady said. The investigation is continuing, and the state could refile charges if new evidence
                                    emerged. That doesn't appear likely at this point, she said.
 
 
Reach Daily News reporter Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com and 257-4390.
 
Author: LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
Staff
Page: B1
 
Copyright (c) 2007, Anchorage
                                    Daily News