Bizarre Bacon Case Ends In 9-1/2-Year Rap Victim Was Tied To Trees, Surrounded By Bacon As Lure For Predators

Even as he lay bleeding, tied between two trees and surrounded by bacon in the snow-covered woods near Loon Lake, Jim Peterson was confident he would survive.

“I could feel that I was going to get out of there,” Peterson said Wednesday, after his attacker accepted a plea bargain and cut short a trial that began Monday.

Defendant Tracy Walter pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and first-degree robbery with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 9-1/2 years in prison.

Peterson, 39, said he grew up in the woods near Orient, Wash., and sometimes lives in a teepee, so he was never afraid the bacon would cause wild animals to eat him.

Being pistol-whipped in the head by Walter and left to the elements was the real threat to his life, Peterson said.

“I was scared to death,” he said. “That really hurt.”

Peterson ruefully recalled the bacon that was hung on branches all around him on that freezing first night of February like a camper’s laundry.

“Every time I even try to be serious, it ends up being some kind of a joke.”

Stevens County Prosecutor Jerry Wetle described the 35-year-old Walter as a drug-dealing “flunky” for the Ghost Riders motorcycle gang. Wetle said the bacon incident began when Peterson offered his unpredictable friend Walter a ride to Spokane even though Walter had beaten him just a few weeks earlier.

Walter and Peterson stopped in Blue Creek to pick up another friend, Randy Thomas.

Thomas, 34, testified that Walter was upset because he suspected Thomas or another man “snitched him off” when he was arrested two weeks earlier in Kettle Falls.

Thomas said Walter coerced him to come along by frequently pulling out a revolver and “playing with it.” He thought it would be “out of character” for his 20-year friend Walter to shoot him, but he was still scared.

After they stopped at a convenience store in Chewelah to buy bacon and other groceries, Thomas said Walter suggested Peterson was the real target. He said Walter had him lead the trio to a secluded spot near Loon Lake on a ruse, looking for hidden drugs.

When Peterson joined Thomas in digging around at the base of a tree, Walter began beating Peterson on the head with the pistol. Then Walter ordered Thomas to tie Peterson between two trees.

Thomas and Peterson said they believe Walter was pointing the gun at Peterson when they heard it misfire. Peterson believes Thomas saved his life by pleading with Walter not to shoot again.

“He convinced Tracy not to kill me by yelling at him that ‘I don’t think we ought to kill him, and that it was divine intervention when the gun misfired,”’ Peterson said.

There was indeed reason to believe in divine intervention.

Peterson said Walter responded by saying, “Well, let’s see,” and pointing the broken-down .22-caliber revolver into the woods and pulling the trigger again. The gun - with a drill bit holding its cylinder in place - fired that time and Walter jumped as though surprised, Peterson said.

Superior Court Judge Rebecca Baker said she wasn’t sure whether Walter intended to kill Peterson or just scare him. Baker told Walter he was lucky to avoid a murder charge.

Walter also was lucky when Baker threw out charges of possessing methamphetamine and being a felon in possession of a firearm that stemmed from Walter’s earlier arrest in Kettle Falls. A police officer didn’t get a search warrant before looking inside a glove Walter tossed out of his car during a traffic stop.

Defense attorney Patty St. Clair said Thomas was involved in the attack on Peterson “from the get-go.” She said it was “probably the hardest thing for Mr. Walter to swallow” when Thomas got off last month with just a year in the county jail for possessing methamphetamine and stealing a car.

Both men had been charged with first-degree assault with a deadly weapon and first-degree robbery with a deadly weapon. St. Clair said Walter faced a 20-year sentence.

Throughout his trial, the grim-faced Walter matched what St. Clair said was his reputation as a man who would “thump” his enemies rather than shoot them.

Wearing a thin mustache and with his long hair swept back into a tight ponytail, the lanky Walter was an imposing figure as his dark, penetrating eyes darted from one speaker to the next.

But he burst into tears and daubed his eyes with a tissue when St. Clair said he accepted the plea bargain in the hope of getting out of prison in time to spend “some meaningful time” with his 13-year-old son.

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