DULUTH - While serving an 18-month tour of duty in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Adam Sheda started a MySpace page that revealed interests from the unusual -- Russian language and literature -- to the more typical daydreams of a young, homesick soldier: women, cars and beer.

"All my friends better throw me one hell of a party when I get home," wrote Sheda, 26, of Cloquet, Minn. "My plans when I get back are to drink until my heart stops."

Early Saturday, less than a week after returning from Iraq, Sheda was fatally shot with his own pistol in Duluth after he crashed a backyard party of strangers while apparently intoxicated, according to court papers filed Thursday.

Police said that Sheda's unwanted presence at the drinking party escalated to a fight, a struggle for the gun he was carrying and his death from a single shot to the head.

"We're devastated," said his father, Tony Sheda, of Wrenshall, Minn., where Adam grew up, the youngest of six children. He said that while his son was "no saint," he was gregarious and big-hearted, which showed when he arranged for his siblings to send toys and candy for him to distribute to poor Iraqi children.

While Sheda's family held a large funeral with military honors for him Thursday morning at a church in Duluth, authorities at the St. Louis County Courthouse filed second-degree murder charges against 25-year-old Luis Mark Hogan.

The complaint alleges that Hogan, a lumberyard laborer from Duluth who has no serious criminal record, severely beat Sheda, wrestled away his pistol, and shot him in the head while yelling "187" followed by an expletive.

He later told police that the number 187 is a reference in certain rap music to the California penal-code number for murder, the complaint said.

A handcuffed and shackled Hogan appeared to be choking back tears during his brief court appearance, at which District Judge Gerald Martin ordered Hogan held in lieu of $300,000 bail. A large contingent of Hogan's family members tearfully watched the hearing and afterward hugged and consoled one another.

Duluth Police Sgt. Bob Shene, the lead investigator of what is Duluth's first homicide this year, called it a senseless death "involving good people who got wrapped-up in something that got out of hand."

Of Hogan, Shene said: "This isn't a hardened criminal."

Shene said he won't comment on what role alcohol might have played until toxicology test results are available from samples taken during Sheda's autopsy. Hogan wasn't tested because he wasn't immediately identified as a suspect and wasn't under arrest after the shooting, Shene said.

"It took some time to sort out the stories of the people who were there," Shene said.

A pistol and a wad of cash

According to a criminal complaint citing Hogan's eventual confession and witness accounts: Carrying a pistol and about $2,000, Sheda took a cab last Friday from his home in Cloquet to the nearby Black Bear Casino, then to a bar in Duluth.

His dad speculated that his son went out alone because a friend who normally would have gone wasn't available. He said he didn't know beforehand that his son was carrying a gun or why he would do so.

Tony Sheda said that since returning from Iraq his son had seemed "happy-go-lucky" and was looking forward to another trip to Russia and to continue adding to his collection of World War II memorabilia.

According to the complaint: At about 1:15 a.m. Saturday, Adam Sheda left the Duluth bar and tried to enter Fond du Luth Casino in downtown Duluth but was turned away, apparently because he was obviously intoxicated.