Man guilty of killing Danville teen over pot

(05-13) 14:27 PDT DANVILLE -- A Berkeley man was convicted of first-degree murder Monday in the 2009 shooting death of a Danville teenager during a marijuana robbery.

Walter Bell, 22, is expected to be sentenced June 21 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Rylan Fuchs, who was a 17-year-old senior at San Ramon Valley High School.

Bell was found guilty of first-degree murder along with the special circumstance of murder committed during a robbery.

Fuchs was shot once in the throat about 9:15 p.m. Jan. 20, 2009 outside his home on the 1000 block of El Capitan Drive, a residential neighborhood just north of the Crow Canyon Country Club. Authorities said Fuchs was selling a small amount of marijuana and that Bell tried to rob him of the drug.

At his trial, Bell testified that a second man, Aaron Marks, had shot Fuchs, said Jill Henderson, a Contra Costa County deputy district attorney. Marks set up the robbery but was shot and killed in Oakland last year, investigators said.

Fuchs' mother, stepfather and 9-year-old brother were in their ranch-style home when he was shot. The slaying shocked the town of Danville, where violence is rare.

Fuchs had a MySpace page in which he said he supported the decriminalization of marijuana and was pictured posing next to what appeared to be the drug.