A 1997 Redmond High School graduate and former Bend resident is at the center of an investigation into a Washington case in which a Spokane man was shot to death in his home.

Investigators believe James Henrikson, 34, hired a hit man to kill business partner Doug Carlile, 63, because Carlile wanted to buy Henrikson out of their North Dakota-based oil field development company, Kingdom Dynamics Enterprises, according to an affidavit submitted by Spokane Police Detective Mark Burbridge.

Carlile was gunned down in his Spokane kitchen on Dec. 15 just after he and his wife returned from church. His wife reported hearing voices downstairs and returned to the kitchen, where she saw a man in all black pointing a gun at her husband. She reportedly heard Carlile say, “Don’t do anything,” before she turned and ran upstairs, hearing several gunshots. She called 911 while hiding in a closet, according to Burbridge’s affidavit.

Police on Jan. 14 arrested Timothy Suckow, 50, after finding a discarded glove with DNA matching Suckow’s near the scene. Suckow is charged with first-degree aggravated murder and burglary. He is currently being held in the Spokane County jail in lieu of $2 million bail.

According to the affidavit, an informant told police he heard Henrikson tell an acquaintance “this job would pay the same as the last job.” The informant believes the “last job” was the February 2012 disappearance of Henrikson’s former operations manager, Casey Clark, who’s been missing since February 2012. Henrikson is a suspect in Clark’s disappearance, according to the affidavit.

Skyler Carlile, son of the victim, told Spokane Police his father had said to him, “If I disappear or wake up with bullets in my back, promise me you will let everyone know James Henrikson did it.”

Henrikson lived in Redmond until 2004 and in Bend until 2008. He was convicted of several felonies in Deschutes County, including assault, burglary, theft, eluding police and manufacturing marijuana between 2001 and 2011, according to court documents.

Henrikson is currently being held on suspicion of federal weapons charges in North Dakota at Heart of America Correctional and Treatment Center in Rugby, N.D. He has been indicted on seven counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, according to his attorney, William Schmidt.

Henrikson was arrested on the suspected weapons infractions in January when federal agents served a search warrant on the Watford City, N.D., home he shares with his wife, Sarah Creveling. The agents report finding several pistols, rifles, shotguns and ammunition in a safe in the home’s master bathroom.

On Jan. 21, the U.S. District Court of North Dakota issued a complaint calling for the forfeiture of the couple’s home and property, assets — including a 2005 Bentley Continental purchased with a cashier’s check worth $60,099 — and bank accounts showing millions of dollars worth of transactions over a period of several years.

The complaint states, “Henrikson and Creveling frequently and routinely co-mingled and transferred back-and-forth funds — both that they received fraudulently from investors and funds received from the operation of their business interest …Accordingly, the business income represents proceeds derived from the fraud itself.”

Creveling has not been charged with a crime related to this case.

— Reporter: 541-383-0376,sking@bendbulletin.com