Ehrhardt's Murderer Sought Cash, Marijuana

Police have arrested and charged 21-year-old San Antonio resident Jason Anthony Chacon with capital murder in connection with the Oct. 31 murder of UT student William Ehrhardt III at his West Campus apartment. According to an arrest affidavit, Chacon came to Austin on Halloween with the intention of "jacking" Ehrhardt for a what police described as a substantial amount of cash and a large quantity of marijuana that Austin narcotics officers later found inside Ehrhardt's apartment.

Around 5:30pm on Oct. 31, Ehrhardt called police to report that someone was trying to break into his apartment at 2812 Nueces, but he hung up after telling dispatchers that it appeared the would-be intruder had given up and left. Minutes later, police received a call from someone else at the apartment complex, who reported that shots had been fired. When police arrived, they found that a window in Ehrhardt's apartment had been smashed and Ehrhardt had been shot. Neighbors told police they'd heard glass breaking and a "pop" sound. One neighbor said he heard the shot and someone say "oh shit" before seeing two men running from the apartment. Ehrhardt was taken to Brackenridge Hospital where he died the next day.

That day, Austin police received a tip that the person who killed Ehrhardt was named "Jason"; an officer with the Live Oak, Texas, police department also called investigators to report that a Steven Duparc (a "subject" known by Live Oak PD) had called to report that Ehrhardt was involved in buying and selling marijuana. Police later learned that Duparc allegedly brokered a deal in which Ehrhardt sold 10 pounds of marijuana to Chacon and another man. Duparc told police that Chacon and the other man later bought additional marijuana from Ehrhardt.

On Oct. 31, however, Duparc said he had received several calls from Chacon, seeking directions to Ehrhardt's apartment; Chacon, witnesses told police, was planning to rob Ehrhardt for drugs and cash, according to the arrest affidavit filed by APD Detective Manuel Fuentes. A second man, Billy Arthur, told police that around 10:30pm that night Chacon showed up at Sherlock's bar in North Austin, saying that he'd gone to Ehrhardt's apartment with two other unidentified men and that in the course of the robbery one of the men shot Ehrhardt, reads the warrant. Chacon is currently in the Travis Co. jail.