Golden Pride employee charged in fatal stabbing of coworker

A Golden Pride employee is accused of stabbing a coworker in the neck and killing him inside the restaurant Friday afternoon in the university area.

Ethan Sheppard, 37, is charged with an open count of murder in the death of his coworker Justin Husted, 49.

Sheppard was booked early Saturday morning into the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

Prosecutors filed a motion to detain Sheppard until trial, saying “he is capable of injuring or killing without any justification.”

Sheppard has several arrests for violent offenses on his record. In 2021, he pleaded guilty to two counts of battery upon a health care worker, from separate incidents, and was sentenced to a year in prison.

After the stabbing on Friday, police said a manager at Golden Pride told detectives Sheppard had been admitted to a psychiatric unit “at least once in the last month” and they had “changed his medication.”

Officers responded around 1:45 p.m. to the stabbing at the restaurant on Lomas NE, just east of University, and found Sheppard in an SUV in the parking lot and Husted lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen area, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.

Husted was pronounced dead at the hospital, while Sheppard declined to speak with police.

Police said the manager told them the two men “never appeared to have issues” previously and Sheppard had been “acting normal.” The manager said he walked in on the two men “roughhousing” in a back room and saw Sheppard “swing upwards” to strike Husted.

The manager told police he separated the two and saw blood pouring from the neck of Husted, who told him Sheppard had stabbed him, according to the complaint. He said Sheppard tried to approach Husted again and told him, “You’re a (expletive) snitch.”

Police said surveillance video showed Sheppard pull out a knife and approach Husted, who was cleaning the floor and about to head home. The video showed the two men getting into a scuffle before they were separated by the manager, at which point Husted can be seen bleeding profusely.