Witnesses agreed a family argument became physical but differed over whether the slain man struck his sister before Alvin Smith fired.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The witnesses inside a St. Paul home agreed on several basic facts: two men argued, relatives tried to separate them, one gunshot was heard and 27-year-old DeMarcus Gibson-Beard fell to the floor. Their accounts diverged on a question now central to the criminal case — what happened immediately before Alvin James Smith fired.
Smith, 20, is charged with second-degree intentional murder in Gibson-Beard’s Aug. 29 death. According to the Ramsey County criminal complaint, Smith said he fired in defense of himself and his girlfriend after Gibson-Beard struck them. Gibson-Beard’s mother disputed that her son hit his sister, while police said the sister showed no visible facial or head injuries when officers interviewed her. Gibson-Beard’s fiancée offered another account of the confrontation, telling investigators that he rushed toward Smith and threw a punch that missed shortly before she heard a single shot.
The differences do not mean investigators treated every statement as equally established. A criminal complaint summarizes the evidence prosecutors rely on to support a charge, while the defense may challenge those facts and present other evidence as the case proceeds. Smith has not been convicted. At this stage, the document provides competing descriptions from people who were in the home and Smith’s own statements to police. Together, they show why a dispute that reportedly began with a request to help move a television is legally more complicated than the unusual origin of the argument might suggest.
The confrontation began Saturday morning after Gibson-Beard and his fiancée arrived at his mother’s Park Street residence with a television, according to witnesses quoted in the complaint. Gibson-Beard asked Smith, who was dating his sister and living at the home, to help carry the television inside. His fiancée said Smith acted as though the request was disrespectful. That reaction led to an argument, but the disagreement quickly moved beyond the television. Gibson-Beard criticized Smith for living in the residence without contributing to household bills, according to the fiancée’s account.
That subject was not new to the family. Gibson-Beard’s mother told police that she had repeatedly asked Smith and her daughter to move out of her home and that they had refused. She described ongoing tension surrounding the arrangement. Her account makes the television less a stand-alone motive than the immediate trigger for an argument occurring inside an already strained household. Prosecutors have not alleged that Smith arrived at the home planning to kill Gibson-Beard. The charge filed against him alleges intentional murder without premeditation, a distinction built into Minnesota’s second-degree murder law.
As voices rose, the confrontation became physical. Gibson-Beard’s mother said she tried to restrain her son but that Smith continued approaching him. The victim’s fiancée said the dispute moved into the residence and that Gibson-Beard rushed at Smith, attempting a punch that did not land. She said members of the family were trying to separate the two when she heard a pop and saw smoke near Gibson-Beard before he collapsed. Police later found him on the living room floor with a gunshot wound. Medics took him to a hospital, where he died.
Smith’s girlfriend gave investigators an account that supported significant parts of his later self-defense claim. She said Gibson-Beard assaulted Smith and punched her in the head as she tried to intervene. She told police that she heard one gunshot and had not known Smith was carrying a firearm. But investigators documented that she did not have visible injuries to her head or face at the time of the interview. Her mother also told officers that Gibson-Beard had not hit his sister. The charging document does not indicate that those conflicting claims had been resolved through testimony or a judicial ruling.
Smith’s explanation added another issue for investigators: when and why he armed himself. He said Gibson-Beard had insulted him and his girlfriend and was behaving in a threatening way, according to the complaint. Smith told investigators that he went to the bedroom he shared with his girlfriend and concealed a handgun beneath his arm because he wanted protection. He then returned to the living room rather than remaining in the bedroom. Smith said Gibson-Beard later reached around his sister and hit him and her. Smith acknowledged drawing the weapon and firing it.
The complaint includes Smith’s statement indicating that he was conscious of where he aimed when he fired. Prosecutors cited that account while charging him with intentional second-degree murder. Under Minnesota law, that offense requires proof that the defendant intended to cause a death but does not require prosecutors to prove premeditation. The statute allows a sentence of up to 40 years upon conviction. Whether Smith’s claim of self-defense ultimately defeats or reduces the charge is a legal question that had not been decided in the initial public filings reviewed for this report.
Smith did not remain at the residence to await police. Authorities say he left with the handgun, moved through a wooded area and hid beneath a vehicle. The complaint says he called a friend and a cousin and told them he had killed someone. Smith’s girlfriend later spoke with him by phone. He said he did not want to go to jail, referred to possessing an illegal handgun and expressed suicidal thoughts, according to investigators. Police joined the effort to persuade him to return. When he came back, officers arrested him and reported finding a handgun without a serial number in his waistband.
His conduct after the shooting is part of the prosecution’s probable-cause narrative, but it does not eliminate the disputed circumstances that preceded the gunfire. Flight, statements to acquaintances and possession of the weapon are facts prosecutors may cite when describing the sequence after a crime. The defense can still contest what those facts mean and can argue that the shooting itself was legally justified. Smith also engaged in self-injurious behavior during an interview and expressed a desire to die, the complaint says. Those statements were recorded by investigators but should not be treated as proof of guilt or as a diagnosis of his mental condition.
The people present at the home were not distant observers. They were members of the same family network at the center of the dispute: Gibson-Beard’s mother, his sister and his fiancée. The accused man was the sister’s boyfriend and had been living with her in the mother’s residence. That arrangement means the witnesses were also participants in the household disagreement that preceded the shooting. Their relationships do not make any account true or false, but they explain why the complaint contains sharply different descriptions of the same few minutes and why later court proceedings may focus closely on credibility and physical evidence.
Gibson-Beard was remembered by his family as more than the victim identified in a murder complaint. An obituary said the St. Paul man was the father of six children and was born in Wyoming, Minnesota, in 1998. His family described him as someone who brought love and laughter to those around him and said his children were central to his life. He died at age 27. His death was ruled a homicide, a medical classification describing how the death occurred and not a finding of criminal responsibility against any particular person.
Authorities were first called to the Park Street residence at about 11:48 a.m. Aug. 29. Smith was charged two days later, on Aug. 31, and initial reports said he was held on $1 million bail pending a court appearance. Contemporary reports also said he had no prior criminal history. No reliable publicly accessible report located through Oct. 19 established that the case had ended in a plea, dismissal, trial or conviction. The unresolved charge therefore remains an accusation, and the competing accounts described in the complaint have not been replaced here with a judicial finding.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.