OGDEN — By pleading guilty to charges stemming from a stabbing murder in a Riverdale homeless camp, David Keith Wade has a chance to avoid a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Wade, a 50-year-old homeless man, recently pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder, both first-degree felonies, in the June 30, 2020, death of Kyle Wolf, 26, and the crippling of a third homeless man, Evan Estridge.

Prosecutor Letitia Toombs of the Weber County Attorney’s Office said Friday that Wade agreed to a plea bargain Dec. 29 in which he pleaded guilty as charged in return for the prosecution’s agreement to recommend a sentence of 25 years to life rather than life without parole.

Toombs said prosecutors also agreed to dismiss a misdemeanor assault charge related to Wade’s alleged attack against another man after the stabbings.

Second District Judge Jennifer Valencia scheduled Wade’s sentencing for Feb. 9. A death penalty sentence is not in play because prosecutors chose not to seek capital punishment in the case.

Riverdale police arrested Wade, bloody and missing a shoe, on a street near the Lowe’s hardware store on the night of the stabbings, a few dozen yards from a secluded homeless camp in the trees. Wade said he had been attacked. But a woman who was in the camp testified in a preliminary hearing that one of the men asked about his missing beer and Wade became agitated. She said Wade repeatedly stabbed the victims and began looking for her as she slipped away.

Police said Wolf was stabbed 16 times and Estridge suffered eight stab wounds.

Efforts to contact Wade’s attorney, Grant Morrison, were not immediately successful.

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