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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Man dead after being shot in stomach, near Colville

Meghann M. Cuniff Staff writer

Friends tried desperately to save John Leland Nixon.

After the 25-year-old was shot in the stomach early Sunday at a property north of Colville, the man’s friends tried driving him to the hospital while his wife rushed to a neighbor’s home to call for help.

But the hospital-bound car crashed near the base of Bodie Mountain Road, and the neighbor who was driving Nixon’s wife believes the man was already dead when friends dragged him out of the car and performed CPR, long before he reached Mount Carmel Hospital in Colville.

“This whole situation is a tragedy. A big tragedy,” said Dwayne Scarlett, who lives with his wife, Del, on a property near the scene of the shooting, located in the 2300 block of Bodie Mountain Road, near Onion Creek. “I’ve been crying out every day about it.”

Police arrested Victor Buddy Brown, 20, near the scene of the shooting. He had his first appearance Monday and faces charges of manslaughter and unlawful possession of a firearm, but Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer said the investigation is ongoing. Brown remained in Stevens County Jail Monday night on $100,000 bail. Brown has felony convictions that prohibit him from owning firearms, Thayer said.

Del Scarlett said everyone involved, including Nixon’s wife, believes the shooting was accidental.

Brown was a guest at the property when the shooting occurred, according to the sheriff’s office. The first 911 call about the incident came at 12:54 a.m. from a neighbor near where the car crashed.

Brown, Nixon and a friend had been firing guns outside Sunday but had gone inside a trailer on the property thinking the guns were empty, Del Scarlett said.

Nixon and his wife lived in Colville but visited the property often, Del Scarlett said. They had animals there, and Nixon and friends sometimes shot guns at an abandoned car on the property. Nixon and his wife were developmentally disabled and didn’t seem to understand that shooting guns in the middle of the night awoke their neighbors, Del Scarlett said.

But, she said, “We couldn’t really get mad at him. … He didn’t have a malicious bone in his body.”

The Scarletts described Nixon as a “really sweet boy” who loved animals and tried hard to please others.

“He had a heart of gold,” Del Scarlett said.