BELLINGHAM — Investigators believe a target shooter was firing a semi-automatic rifle from the hip when he fired the shot that killed a woman at a Father’s Day barbecue a half-mile away near Ferndale.
The state crime lab matched the bullet that killed Alyssa Smith, 23, of Ferndale, last June with the gun fired by Nicholas Zylstra, 31, of Lynden.
KOMO reports he was arrested Thursday and held without bail in Bellingham on suspicion of manslaughter.
Zylstra was one of five people deputies found shooting guns along the Nooksack River after Smith was fatally wounded at the family barbecue at her father’s house.
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