A Sacramento County jury on Thursday found a man guilty of second-degree murder for a 2022 shooting that killed a 20-year-old Amador County man at a Rancho Cordova house party.
The murder conviction for Amyis Ausar Coogler, 21, included an enhancement for using a gun in the murder of Corey Shearer, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
The deadly shooting occurred about 11:20 p.m. Aug. 5, 2022, at the home in the 3000 block of Ramsgate Way, just east of Mather Field Road in Rancho Cordova, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
Shearer of Ione and his three younger sisters grew up in Amador County, where he played football at Amador High School and later at Argonaut High. His girlfriend accompanied him that night to the party held at the Ramsgate Way home.
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Corey Shearer, 20, of Ione, pictured in an undated photo was shot to death on Friday Aug. 5, 2022, at a house party in the 3000 block of Ramsgate Way in Rancho Cordova, California. Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office
At a January 2023 sheriff’s news conference seeking tips for the then-unsolved homicide, Crystal Shearer, the victim’s mother, said her son didn’t know the people hosting the party and he possibly didn’t know many of the people at the party.
Shearer had been working for about a year as a janitor at Harrah’s Casino in Ione, where his mother also worked the overnight shift. Crystal Shearer said her son had hopes of one day starting a landscaping company.
“He was a very friendly, outgoing, fun person,” she said about her son, “and did not have problems, did not look for problems or try to start problems with people.”
Even though there were 75 to 100 young people at the Rancho Cordova house party, sheriff’s detectives had received little information from many of those in attendance and no suspects had been arrested five months after the fatal shooting.
Crystal Shearer, parent of Corey Shearer, wipes tears after a news conference with family members at the Sheriff’s Office news conference where they released a photo of an unidentified “person of interest” in the homicide investigation of her son in Sacramento, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. Corey Shearer, 20, of Ione was shot and killed on Aug. 5, 2022, at a house party in the 3000 block of Ramsgate Way in Rancho Cordova. Paul Kitagaki Jr. pkitagaki@sacbee.com
At the 2023 news conference, the Sheriff’s Office released an image of a person of interest sought in the case. When Coogler’s arrest was announced a little more than a year later, sheriff’s officials said the image came from security camera video that showed Coogler jumping into a nearby backyard.
On Thursday, prosecutors said the video of Coogler in the neighbor’s backyard was captured shortly after the shooting. Deputies responding to the reported shooting found Shearer with four gunshot wounds on the lawn of the nearby Ramsgate home. Shearer was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Witnesses ultimately told detectives they saw a suspect pull a handgun out of his waistband “and shoot Shearer several times” before running away, sheriff’s officials said previously. Detectives found a 9 mm handgun near where Shearer was shot.
Prosecutors said witnesses gave investigators a description of the shooting suspect. Investigators collected traces of DNA that matched Coogler, including the gun that was used in the fatal shooting.
Coogler, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, played varsity football in 2021 for Capital Christian High School in Rosemont — now known as Destiny Christian Academy — and had been set to graduate in 2023, according to his profile on high school sports website MaxPreps.
Coogler has been in custody since a June 2023 arrest on suspicion of unrelated robberies, jail records show. He remained in custody Thursday at the Sacramento County Jail.
Coogler is scheduled to be sentenced April 10 in Sacramento Superior Court. Prosecutors said he faces a maximum sentence of 40 years to life in prison.
The Bee’s Michael McGough contributed to this story.
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Rosalio Ahumada writes breaking news stories related to crime and public safety for The Sacramento Bee. He speaks Spanish fluently and has worked as a news reporter in the Central Valley since 2004.