GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. -- A Garfield County teenager was charged as an adult Wednesday with first-degree murder and eight other counts in the shooting death of a 9-year-old neighbor.

Eric Alan Stoneman, 14, also faces charges of manslaughter, first-degree assault, menacing with a deadly weapon, possession of a handgun by a juvenile, prohibited use of a weapon and resisting arrest.

The charges stem from a July 20 shooting in the Battlement Mesa community that killed Taylor Allen DeMarco, an avid skateboarder.

Stoneman faces the possibility of life without parole if he is convicted of first-degree murder as an adult. If he had been charged as a juvenile, he would have faced a maximum of seven years in jail.

Speaking at a news conference before the hearing Wednesday, District Attorney Colleen Truden said charging Stoneman as an adult was appropriate, based on the crime.

"The aggravated circumstances and deliberate intent speak for themselves," she told reporters.

The shooting happened at a mobile home in the Saddleback neighborhood of Battlement Mesa. Deputies found DeMarco on the front landing of a friend's home, mortally wounded and he was shot by a .22-caliber pistol.

Witnesses told investigators that Stoneman took his mother's pistol to the home, waved it around and then shot DeMarco as he was walking away.

The two weren't friends and didn't go to school together. DeMarco was a third grader at Bea Underwood Elementary School. Investigators said that Stoneman was a client of a youth services program with a variety of programs for troubled youth at the time of the shooting.

Battlemen Mesa is a town of about 5,000 people midway between Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction, Colo.