BAY CITY, MI — A Bay City man accused of shooting two people in their heads over $40 has accepted a plea deal that will require him to return to prison.
Matthew E. Owczarzak, 35, on Tuesday, Jan. 17, appeared before Bay County Circuit Judge Joseph K. Sheeran and pleaded no contest to single counts of felon in possession of a firearm and felony firearm. The former is a five-year felony, while a conviction of the latter mandates a minimum two-year prison sentence consecutive to any related stint.
The plea agreement states Owczarzak is to serve at least 13 months on the felon-in-possession charge, though the maximum could be as high as seven and a half years.
In exchange for Owczarzak’s pleas, the prosecution agreed to dismiss a second count of felony firearm and a charge of possessing a narcotic or cocaine.
Owczarzak pleaded no contest rather than guilty as he lacked memory of his crimes. By pleading as such, he did not admit to having committed any crimes, leaving Sheeran to rely on documents to enter convictions on the record.
According to police reports contained in court files, police, at about 3:45 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2021, responded to a medical call at a house in the 600 block of Wilson Street on Bay City’s South End. They arrived to find a 26-year-old man walking in the street, his face covered in blood, saying he’d been shot in his head and couldn’t move his left arm.
Police also found a 22-year-old woman leaning against a lawn chair, bleeding profusely from her head. The woman was unresponsive, with labored and shallow breathing. She held a glass smoking pipe and was wrapped in a blanket, records show.
Both victims were taken to area hospitals for treatment.
Parked in a grassy area at the scene was a Jeep Cherokee with a broken driver’s side window and blood spattered about.
Two women told police they had been in the Jeep with the two wounded people, the man having been the driver and the injured woman having been the front seat passenger.
The women said they were stopped in an alleyway on Wilson when a silver sedan pulled up. A man exited the sedan, walked up to the Jeep, smashed the driver’s side window with a pistol, then fired a shot into the Jeep’s interior.
Both women identified Owczarzak as the shooter, saying the shooting was over $40. One of the women said the wounded man had a crack cocaine addiction and that Owczarzak had fronted him $40 worth of the illicit stimulant a few days prior.
The wounded man’s ex-girlfriend — not one of the women who had been in the Jeep — told police Owczarzak had visited her about a half-hour before the shooting.
“Matthew was in a funny, jokey mood,” the ex-girlfriend told police, according to their reports. “Matthew said he was ready to shoot [the man] but was laughing about it.”
The wounded woman suffered a skull fracture, a laceration to the top of her head, and critical bleeding. Doctors indicated to police she may have been struck by a ricocheting bullet, court records show.
The wounded man told police from a Saginaw hospital that he had given someone a ride to the location where the shooting occurred.
“Someone came speeding up the alleyway and hopped out,” he told police. “I locked the door and the windows were up. He came to the front driver’s side window. In one motion, he pistol-whipped and pulled the trigger. Everything went black for me. I couldn’t see for a second.”
The wounded man initially said he didn’t know who shot him, but then said he knew the shooter but wouldn’t identify him by name.
“It was over a miniscule amount of money, $40,” the wounded man told police. “It’s basically the principle.”
Police on the evening of Nov. 17, 2021, surveilled a Bay City house Owczarzak was believed to be inside. Owczarzak exited the house and drove away, only to be pulled over and arrested by police.
Owczarzak has been to prison on drug offenses, Michigan Department of Corrections records show.
Judge Sheeran is to sentence Owczarzak at 9 a.m. on Feb. 27.
Read more from MLive:
Bay City man shot two people in their heads over $40 drug debt, court records show
Police arrest suspect in double-shooting in Bay City’s South End
Bay City double shooting leaves 22-year-old woman in critical condition
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