EPHRATA — A man pleaded guilty to his involvement with a 2005 murder near Mattawa.

Jason I. Collins, 28, Lebanon, Ore., pleaded guilty to rendering criminal assistance in the first degree for his part in the shooting of Jon Carrico. A charge of murder in the first degree was dropped as part of the plea agreement.

Collins faces a minimum of a year and three months to three years and seven months in prison. Prosecutors plan to ask for the low end of the range, according to court records.

Collins, Carrico and Marcus Quesnell, 34, Grant County, were at a house in July 2005, when Collins and Carrico started arguing about amplifiers and money Carrico owed for meth, according to a Grant County sheriff’s report.

After agreeing to pick up the amplifiers, the three men started traveling. They stopped in a nearby root cellar Carrico had stayed in, according to the police report. The men started smoking methamphetamine.

Quesnell told police he left the cellar and took a .22 caliber pistol from a briefcase Collins brought with him and shot Carrico, according to the police report. Carrico’s body was discovered in October 2005, after his mother contacted police in August 2005 to report her son missing.

Quesnell pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree in October 2006, and was sentenced to roughly 20 years in prison.