Two Bigfork teens arrested in Ferndale homicide

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

Two arrests were made on Sunday, Jan. 27 in connection with the New Year's Eve murder of 24-year-old Ferndale man Clyde Wilson.

Ronald Lon Petersen and Zachary Forkin, both 19, were arrested after the Lake County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous tip that led them to a Ferndale area residence. Information and evidence gained from that tip led to the teens' arrests.

Petersen was arrested at Fort Bragg Army Base in Fayetteville, N.C. and Forkin at his Bigfork area home.

On Tuesday morning, deliberate homicide charges were filed against Petersen in Lake County District Court, according to a court document. The maximum penalty such charges carry is life imprisonment.

An accompanying affidavit outlines the events surrounding Wilson's shooting on Dec. 31, 2007. Wilson's girlfriend, 20-year-old Raney Frick, called 911 to report that an intruder had entered the Meadow Creek Road home in Ferndale that she shared with Wilson and their infant child and fired three shots, killing Wilson.

The assailant fled on foot through the back door and Frick waited until deputies arrived. In an interview that night with Frick, she stated that she had fallen asleep next to Wilson watching a movie on the futon and was woken up by the gunshots, according to the affidavit.

Frick described the assailant as a male about 5'7" and approximately 180 lbs. He was wearing a dark colored ski hat and a dark coat. Detectives also found boot prints in the snow outside the back of the residence, the documents state.

On Jan. 26, the affidavit states, Ryon Gates called the Lake County Sheriff's Office with information that his brother, Petersen, had killed Wilson. Gates told investigators details related to him about the incident that had not yet been released to the public and stated that Petersen had shown him a handgun which Petersen stated he had used to kill someone in Ferndale.

The affidavit states that Petersen told Gates the gun belonged to Zack, who Gates identified to detectives as Zachary Forkin, who lives at 135 Marken Loop in Bigfork.

Deputies obtained a warrant and searched the Forkin residence but the gun, belonging to Forkin's mother Frances, was missing, according to the document. Forkin told investigators he had loaned the gun to Petersen. According to Forkin, Petersen stayed at his home while on leave from the Army, according to the affidavit. The document also states that after arrested in Fort Bragg, Petersen gave a statement to investigators in which he described the shooting.

Also on Tuesday, the Flathead County Search and Rescue squad sent divers into the Swan River near downtown Bigfork in an attempt to recover the murder weapon. Flathead Search and Rescue coordinator Jordan White threw a specially marked handgun into the river from the bridge as a test for searchers to establish the drift pattern the weapon might have taken.

A high-tension wire was strung across the river upstream from the bridge to provide divers with an anchor and so that a uniform search pattern could be established. With temperatures in the teens and ice along the shores of the river, divers could only stay in the water for about 20 minutes at a time before taking refuge in a rewarming vehicle.

Lake County Undersheriff Jay Doyle said the search at the Swan River began on Monday and lasted about two and a half hours before crews decided to come back Tuesday. He said the search was precipitated by a tip that the weapon might have been thrown from the bridge. White flung the test gun from the driver's side of a slow moving vehicle traveling southwest across the bridge.