Granite Falls murder suspect allegedly shot someone else hours earlier

GRANITE FALLS — A Mount Vernon man accused of a weekend murder in Granite Falls is also the suspect in a Skagit County homicide that occurred hours earlier, prosecutors say.

Finley Hilde, 22, was arrested and booked into the Snohomish County Jail following Saturday’s fatal shooting in Granite Falls.

Fourteen hours before the Granite Falls shooting, Hilde reportedly shot a man at an apartment complex in Burlington, deputy prosecutor Jacqueline Lawrence said in court. In that case, police responded to the 1200 block of East Fairhaven Avenue after reports of gun shots and a vehicle fleeing the scene. Burlington officers found a person inside an apartment with a suspected gunshot wound.

At 11 a.m. Saturday, a woman called 911 to report her boyfriend had been shot in the 21100 block of Gun Club Road in Granite Falls, according to a police report. First responders pronounced the man dead at the scene. His identity had not been released by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office Monday.

The woman told police she was in a weigh station office when her boyfriend and Hilde got into an argument outside. She heard four to five gunshots. She ran outside to find her boyfriend had been shot, she reported, and the shooter driving off. She described the suspect as a white man, in his 20s, wearing a white hat, black shirt and black pants, police wrote. She reported the suspect fled in a red and black dump truck with the name “Hilde” painted on the side.

A sheriff’s deputy spotted the dump truck in the roundabout intersection of Quarry and Jordan roads in Granite Falls, police wrote, and detained Hilde.

Inside the truck, a white semi-automatic pistol was reportedly visible in the front passenger seat.

Hilde reportedly told police he did not know the man he shot in Granite Falls and had never spoken to him before. He reported he was concerned for his safety in the argument, police wrote, and “God gave him permission” to shoot.

“(Hilde) did not show any remorse for his actions,” the police report reads, “But stated that he may have acted too fast and wished he thought about it longer.”

The suspect reportedly told detectives he had access to “numerous” guns in his home, including an AK-47, an AR-15 and multiple handguns.

Everett District Court Judge Tam Bui on Monday heeded the state’s request to set bail at $3 million.

Hilde has no prior felony record in the state of Washington, defense attorney Paul Wagner said in court.

Ellen Dennis: 425-339-3486; ellen.dennis@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterellen.