Hunter Who Killed Friend Sentenced Baxter Gets 90 Days, Work Release After Misleading Police About Accidental Shooting

Mark Baxter will never hunt again.

It wouldn’t be fair to his former best friend, Mark Halfhide, whom he found lying dead on a logging road south of Coeur d’Alene last December.

It was a bullet from Baxter’s 30.06 rifle that killed Halfhide on Dec. 1.

“I’ve deer hunted for 25 years,” a sobbing Baxter said Tuesday during his sentencing hearing. “If I would have known Mark was there, I wouldn’t have shot.”

First District Judge Gary Haman sentenced Baxter to 90 days in jail and work release. Baxter will also have the chance to clear his record if he completes three years of supervised probation.

The 37-year-old Coeur d’Alene man was charged with involuntary manslaughter and obstructing justice.

He pleaded guilty to accidentally shooting Halfhide while the two were hunting deer with Baxter’s father, Wayne, in the Cave Bay area of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Kootenai County sheriff’s detectives said the Baxters told them they heard a shot and called out to Halfhide, but he didn’t respond. They later found the 46-year-old hunter lying dead.

Halfhide’s widow, Charlene, has maintained no charges should have been filed against Baxter, who has known Halfhide since the two were boys.

“To sit in jail is not going to bring Mark back,” she testified in court Tuesday. “I want to see positive come out of this for Mark Halfhide’s sake.”

Prosecutors said they would not recommend any sentence greater than that suggested in a pre-sentence investigation. In that report, investigators recommended suspended probation, jail and work release.

Haman said Baxter appeared to be on a good path and was remorseful of his crime. However, jail time, he said, brings closure to a case that has split two close families.

“In some cases it aids the healing process,” Haman said, adding, “I don’t know if you can ever have closure or finality to something like this.”

Halfhide’s father, Rollo Halfhide, testified that the Baxters lied to him the day after his son was shot.

“To this day, they have not told the truth to me,” he testified.

Police said the Baxters withheld evidence in Halfhide’s death and sent them on a 10-day search for the shooter, spending more than 150 hours on the case.

Wayne Baxter told police he heard the sound of a diesel truck leaving the area. Police quickly sealed off all roads in the area. Paramedics responding to the scene said they saw a brown pickup speeding away.

Baxter initially told sheriff’s detectives he didn’t know whose stray shot killed Mark Halfhide, but once confronted with the evidence that it was the bullet from his gun that killed his friend, Baxter changed his story, police said.

“I could see Baxter becoming very despondent and emotional over the realization that his secret had been uncovered,” Kootenai County sheriff’s Sgt. Brad Maskell wrote in his report. “He stated more and more that he would not be able to live with the knowledge, as well as the public’s knowledge, he had killed Mark Halfhide.”

“Baxter spoke of going to the viewing of Halfhide’s body a few days prior,” Maskell wrote. “(Baxter) said he walked up to (Halfhide), touched him, and told him, `I’m sorry I killed you.”’ However, Baxter maintained at his sentencing he did not know it was his bullet that killed his friend until he was confronted with the information. He had shot at a deer.

Baxter said he would stick by that story.

“I don’t to this day understand how that happened.”

Angie Gaddy can be reached at (208) 765-7124 or by e-mail at angieg@spokesman.com.