Man charged with fatally shooting driver in Topeka

A 21-year-old man has been charged with fatally shooting an 18-year-old man as he was driving, causing him to crash into a Topeka home.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Kelsey Lee Fairchild, of Overbrook, was charged Friday in Shawnee County with alternative counts of first-degree murder in the death of Colton Chad Christenson. Other charges against Fairchild include aggravated robbery.

Fairchild is jailed on $1 million bond. District Court Judge William Ossmann appointed a lawyer from the public defenders-conflicts office to represent Fairchild, but online court records don’t list the attorney’s name.

Police said a passenger shot Christenson on Monday. The car continued a short distance before crashing into the front porch of a home. Christenson was pronounced dead at a hospital. No one inside the home was injured.