After over a year, man arrested in Alaska village for murder of childhood friend

A man was arrested in Perryville, Alaska, for a shooting death in 2016 that is now being prosecuted as a murder. In the investigation, authorities found conflicting information within the circumstances of 31-year-old Joseph Peterson's death.

The story initially provided by witnesses was that Peterson was shot and killed in self-defense by 32-year-old Ole Shangin. However, prosecutors say that story soon began to unravel the more investigators pulled at the threads. Now, they're saying it was murder.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, more than a year and a half later, Shangin was arrested by the Alaska State Troopers on a warrant issued earlier that month. Peterson's sister Kathleen said she had been waiting for that day.

"I've been diligently fighting for my brother, in all of these 18 months and 14 days," Kathleen told Channel 2. "We're building a case strong enough to put [Shangin] away for life." Kathleen said the two men were childhood best friends, grew up together, and had been on what would have been a fishing trip together.

The killing transpired on July 16, 2016, in the tiny community of Ivanof Bay, a remote settlement on the Alaska Penninsula where only two homes exist; one home belongs to a married couple, Alfred and Lori Kalmakoff, and the other home belongs to Alfred's brother Allen.

To give a better idea of the isolation of Ivanof Bay in addition to its tiny population, the nearest village of Perryville, which itself only has just over 100 residents, is 45 minutes away by boat. "It's a really difficult case, because it's pretty much in this no-man's land," Kathleen Peterson said.

According to court documents, the Kalmakoffs hired Shangin, his wife Vanessa Shangin, and their friend, Joseph Peterson, to "help them around the house." It was in this living situation that Peterson was shot and killed.

The night it happened, in a 911 call, Lori Kalmakoff described the killing as self-defense. When Alaska State Troopers arrived the following day on July 17, they interviewed those in the home, and took statements reflecting what prosecutors described as "a narrative indicating that Shangin had committed the killing to defend them."

The more troopers dug on this narrative, however, the less it seemed to hold up. The first red flag investigators encountered was a discrepancy between how many shots were fired and how many shots were alleged to have been fired, and specifically where they struck Peterson.

Shangin's account of the events changed several times during the investigation. He told troopers that he shot Peterson twice - once in the chest, and a second time in the head, "when the first shot failed to stop him."

Investigators, however, found otherwise after Peterson's body was inspected. According to the autopsy results, he was shot "at least" three times, and that the two shots that proved to be fatal were in the back and the back of the head.

"The situations will be rare when shooting a person twice in the back will be justified as self-defense," James Klugman, assistant district attorney, wrote in the document.

The second red flag came with the way in which Shangin, and others present in the house, said the shooting took place. According to Shangin, Peterson was in the midst of attacking Alfred, who told Shangin to shoot Peterson. He told investigators that Peterson was "threatening to kill them while struggling with Alfred."

Alfred, however, told a different story. He denied the claim that he told Shangin to shoot, he said he wasn't attacked, and wasn't even in the room when the shooting happened. His wife Lori said the same. Later, authorities said Shangin changed his story again, this time implicating Alfred as pulling the trigger.

"When describing the events to a mutual friend, Shangin denied committing the shooting at all, and instead pretended that Alfred was the one who had killed Peterson," Klugman wrote.

Additionally, Shangin also claimed that Peterson at first tried to shoot him, but the safety was on. Prosecutors said that particular firearm does not have a manual safety. Due to the witness contradiction, as well as the other claims from Shangin, authorities filed for an arrest warrant for murder.

According to the Alaska court system, Shangin was scheduled to be arraigned in Naknek on Friday, with a pre-trial conference scheduled one month later.