Murder charges filed last week against two Snohomish County teenagers say they devised a plan “to make some money” by robbing an alleged fentanyl dealer in Seattle’s Chinatown International District in September when they ended up fatally shooting 23-year-old Olvin Hernandez-Cheverria and injuring a second man.
They swapped clothing with a third suspect as they fled through the city, with one of them later describing in a text message that he was tired from “running from the cops in Seattle all night,” according to King County prosecutors.
Seattle police announced the March 27 arrests of two of three suspects involved in the deadly robbery in a blotter post Monday. A 19-year-old man was arrested in Arlington while an 18-year-old man, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, was arrested at his home in Marysville.
Court and jail records show Kaleb Michael Smith, 19, and Sid Spaeth, 18, were charged Wednesday with premeditated first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm. They remain in custody at the King County Jail in lieu of $3 million each. A third suspect captured in video surveillance footage with Smith and Spaeth has not been identified.
Seattle police responded to reports of a shooting at the top of the stairs on the east side of 12th Avenue South at South Lane Street around 9:40 p.m. on Sept. 22, where they found Hernandez-Cheverria on the ground with a gunshot wound to his neck, charging papers say. Officers recovered two spent casings — one from a .40-caliber gun, the other from a 9 mm — along with an apparent fired bullet with a red tip and a “monster mask,” the charges say.
Preliminary test results showed the fired bullet that passed through Hernandez-Cheverria’s body is consistent with .40-caliber ammunition, according to the charges.
A 38-year-old man, who reportedly was associated with the trio of robbers, was taken to Harborview Medical Center to be treated for a gunshot wound to his leg.
A man who described himself to police as a fentanyl user later told officers he had just handed over $40 to a dealer he knows when one of the suspects — later identified as Smith — put a gun to his head and the unidentified suspect rummaged through this pockets, then told him to leave, the charges say.
As the man was walking away, he saw “a hands-on struggle” between a group of people and the people who had just robbed him, heard two gunshots and flagged down an on-duty King County sheriff’s deputy at 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street, the charges say.
Detectives used video footage from various cameras to track the suspects' movements. By the time they were captured by cameras in downtown, the “three suspects appeared to have swapped clothing items” with each other, the charges say. After visiting a marijuana dispensary in Belltown, Smith and Spaeth were later seen getting into a red pickup that drove away, while the third suspect continued along on foot.
Nearly a month before the shooting, another Seattle police detective learned of a recorded phone conversation between someone incarcerated at the King County Jail and a man believed to be Smith. During the call, they discussed targeting a witness in a shooting investigation that was nearing trial, though charging papers don’t provide additional details about the earlier shooting.
The day after Hernandez-Cheverria was killed, the same person called Smith’s phone several times and Smith expressed reluctance to return to Seattle “because some (expletive) happened yesterday,” later referencing news coverage about Chinatown in the recorded phone calls, according to the charges.
The person who called Smith from the jail also called Spaeth 39 times between June and September about plans to target a witness, the charges say.
Both Smith and Spaeth posed with guns on their social media accounts — including the two unrecovered weapons believed to have been used in the shootings at 12th and Lane. Based on evidence in the case, it is believed Smith was armed with a .40-caliber gun at the time of the shooting and gave a 9 mm gun to Spaeth, the charges say.
Seattle Times staff reporter Catalina Gaitán contributed to this story.
© 2026 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
