Man gets 35 years in prison for shooting man in head with shotgun at Colville homeless camp
A 38-year-old man was sentenced earlier this summer to 35 years in prison for shooting a man in the head with a shotgun at a Colville homeless camp.
A jury found Ryan M. Vanpelt guilty June 11 of first-degree murder and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in the killing of Carl K. Connor, according to court documents. Superior Court Judge Lisa Malpass sentenced Vanpelt nearly two weeks after the guilty verdict to 421 months in prison.
Witnesses say they saw Vanpelt, a convicted felon, shoot Connor in the head the afternoon of Jan. 28, 2023, at a homeless camp on Louis Perras Road, according to court records.
Vanpelt was seen smoking methamphetamine and interacting with Connor, police wrote. Vanpelt then went to his car to get a shotgun and shot Connor before putting the gun back in the car and driving away.
Stevens County Sheriff’s Office deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Vanpelt more than three hours later on Johnson Grade Road near State Route 25, about 12 miles from the Canadian border, according to a sheriff’s office Facebook post at the time. He was in the Toyota RAV4 he left the murder scene in, according to documents.
Vanpelt declined to speak to law enforcement.
One witness told police Connor was smoking meth and cleaning out a truck to make room because two others were going to cut firewood with Connor, according to documents. The man said he went to grab a garbage bag and when he returned, Vanpelt had a shotgun pointed at Connor’s head and then shot Connor through the truck window.
The witness said Vanpelt looked at him, placed the shotgun in the back seat of the Toyota and calmly drove away.
Another witness shared a similar account. She said Connor came to her tent to see if she and a man would cut firewood with him. She used the portable restroom, and when she came out, she saw Vanpelt shoot Connor, put the gun in the Toyota and drive off. She said she did not witness any arguing between the victim and defendant and said everyone appeared to be in good spirits.
An officer noted a gunshot hole in the window of a brown Ford F-150 and heard a witness yell, “Ryan shot him.” The responding officer saw Connor slumped over the truck seat with one of the witnesses standing behind him, holding his body upright and from falling to the ground.
A man was applying a bath towel to Connor’s wound, the officer said. Another officer assisted in lowering Connor to the ground. He died at the scene.
Prior to June’s sentencing, Vanpelt was sentenced in April to 20 months in prison after a jury found him guilty of two counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of possession with intent to deliver meth stemming from a 2022 incident in Stevens County.