Two men charged in February shooting death appear in court

COLUMBIA – Two of the six defendants charged in the February shooting death of 18-year-old Ronald Cornell “Corey” Brown appeared for preliminary hearings Friday in Boone County Circuit Court.

Ashtin Levi Weger, 19, and Nicholas James Weavers, 21, are each charged with second-degree murder and first-degree attempted robbery.  

The prosecution in Weger's case was granted a continuance to June 26 to obtain DNA evidence. Weger is represented by private attorney Kirk Zwink.

Weavers, who is represented by former public defender Kevin O’Brien, waived his initial hearing, making his next step the Circuit Court on a date to be determined. Both men are being held on a $1 million cash-only bond and could face 10 to 30 years or life for murder and five to 15 years for the attempted robbery, Zwink said.

The charges stem from an incident on Feb. 16 at Ballenger Liquor at 2201 Ballenger Lane, where Weger and Weavers along with four other individuals were meeting for a marijuana deal. As previously reported in the Missourian, Weger, Brown and Andre Josiah Lee, 21, were to meet Bradley Edward Enyart, 16, in the parking lot of the liquor store to purchase the marijuana.

Both sides in the transaction were planning to rob the other, and neither group brought money or drugs to the deal, according to previous Missourian reports.

Shortly after Weger, Brown and Lee arrived, a Jeep pulled up and Enyart got out firing a handgun at them, at which time the men returned fire. Brown was struck in the abdomen and pelvic area and was later pronounced dead at University Hospital. Weavers was a passenger in the Jeep.