14-year-old bear hunter shoots, kills hiker

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. – A 14-year-old bear hunter who shot and killed a hiker was with his 16-year-old brother – not an adult as previously reported, the Skagit County sheriff’s office says.

An investigation determined that the boys’ grandfather dropped them off in the Sauk Mountain area near Rockport on Saturday morning but was not with them when the shooting occurred, Chief Deputy Will Reichardt said Monday.

The two teens, from Concrete, were on a ledge overlooking the trail when the hiker, 54-year-old Pamela Almli, stopped below to put something into her backpack, he said. The younger boy fired, thinking she was a bear.

Almli was from the Snohomish County community of Oso, which means “bear” in Spanish. Almli was hiking with a friend.

“All I can say is that it never should have happened,” Almli’s husband, William, told the Skagit Valley Herald. They have a son and three grandchildren.

“How do you confuse a woman with a bear?” he asked.

Family members said Almli was an avid hiker.

“She lived to be out there,” her sister, Gail Blacker, told KOMO-TV. “You couldn’t keep her in. She’d go in the snow, rain – it didn’t matter.”

Bear hunting season opened Saturday for the entire Sauk Mountain area, including trails popular with hikers. The season goes through the end of the year.

The hunter and victim were about 120 yards apart, said Sgt. Bill Heinchk, of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Heinchk said he always tells his hunter safety class: “Once that gun goes off, there is no taking it back; everyone’s lives are changed forever.”

Skagit County prosecutors were meeting with sheriff’s investigators to decide whether to file charges.