SALT LAKE CITY — The man accused of fatally shooting University of Utah football player Aaron Lowe pleaded guilty Monday to murder, more than two years after police said he killed the cornerback outside a rowdy house party in Salt Lake City.
Buk Mawut Buk, now 25, pleaded guilty to Lowe’s murder and the attempted murder of a woman injured in the Sept. 26, 2021, shooting, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said. Police say he fired several shots at the two during a heated argument after the footballer asked Buk’s friends to move their car.
As Lowe, 21, and Fuamoli Pomale, 20, lay bleeding on the ground, witnesses watched in horror as Buk continued shooting at them, court documents show.
Buk will be sentenced April 29 and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years to life in Utah State Prison. In exchange for his guilty plea, the judge dismissed additional charges of obstruction of justice and possession of a weapon by a restricted person since he was already on probation.
“While perfect justice would mean that Mr. Lowe was alive and the other victim did not have to live with injuries that will last a lifetime, we hope that this sentencing gives Mr. Lowe’s loved ones and the second victim a sense of have received. benchmark for justice,” Gill said Monday.
The second-year cornerback’s death came less than a year after his teammate Ty Jordan died of an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound on Christmas night in 2020.
The two were high school friends and football teammates in their hometown of Mesquite, Texas, before coming to play for Utah. Lowe changed his college jersey to Jordan’s No. 22 after the running back’s death and was the first recipient of a memorial scholarship established in his honor.
About nine months after Jordan’s death, the Utes mourned one of their own again, after an off-campus house party meant to celebrate their victory over Washington State turned into violence. Uninvited guests, including Buk, showed up at the private party and started causing a commotion, police said.
Lowe and Pomale tried to leave the party just after midnight, but found their car blocked by another vehicle. While arguing with a group of men who refused to move their car, Buk walked across the street to retrieve a gun from another man and began shooting, court documents show.
Lowe died at the scene. The Utah State Medical Examiner’s Office later recovered four bullets from his body, according to the autopsy. Pomale survived after undergoing emergency surgery for multiple gunshot wounds to her neck and chest.
Buk, who was arrested in Draper in October, was already on probation for two robberies, including one in which authorities say he robbed a father and daughter at gunpoint. Salt Lake City police said at the time of his arrest for the shootings that Buk had an “extensive violent criminal history” dating back to at least 2017.