Richard “Cole” Vanderhoek was convicted of second-degree murder more than two years after David Collins Sr. was killed outside a Vancouver home.

VANCOUVER, Wash. — A Clark County jury convicted Richard “Cole” Vanderhoek of second-degree murder in the bow-and-arrow killing of 42-year-old David Collins Sr., rejecting a defense that portrayed the fatal confrontation outside a northeast Vancouver home as an act of self-protection.

The verdict resolved the central dispute that had followed the case since Collins was killed on April 2, 2024: whether Vanderhoek responded to an immediate threat after a physical fight or pursued Collins after the confrontation had begun to break apart. Investigators documented injuries on Vanderhoek, and his lawyers argued self-defense at trial. Prosecutors focused instead on evidence that Collins had tried to leave, that Vanderhoek followed him and that a chain-link fence separated the two men when the arrow was fired. Jurors ultimately accepted the prosecution’s account sufficiently to find Vanderhoek guilty of second-degree murder.

The confrontation began well before deputies arrived. A witness told investigators that two men were fighting near a home in the 3200 block of Northeast Petticoat Lane at about 6:05 a.m. One man, later identified as Collins, walked away, according to accounts of the probable-cause record. The other man appeared to follow in a vehicle. Authorities said the men later returned to the area and a second confrontation developed. That sequence became important because it gave prosecutors a basis to argue that the fatal encounter was not simply one continuous struggle in which Vanderhoek had no opportunity to disengage.

Vanderhoek himself contacted emergency dispatchers shortly before 6:45 a.m. and reported that he had shot another man with a bow and arrow after an altercation. Deputies who responded found Collins lying in a driveway. The Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office later identified him as David Joseph Collins Sr., 42, and determined that his death was a homicide caused by the arrow wound. Vanderhoek initially identified Collins by his first name and described him to investigators as an acquaintance. He was taken to a hospital for treatment of apparent minor injuries before he was arrested.

Those injuries became part of the defense narrative from the beginning. Court records and reporting based on the probable-cause declaration said Vanderhoek had an injury to the left side of his face along with scrapes on his chest and elbow. He repeatedly asked deputies to photograph his injuries and told them that Collins had assaulted him. He was also reported to have said that he had told Collins to stop attacking him. The injuries provided evidence that a physical fight had occurred, but they did not by themselves settle the separate legal question of whether deadly force was justified at the moment Vanderhoek fired the bow.

Prosecutors built their competing account around what happened after the initial fight. The neighbor who described the earlier confrontation said Collins moved away and Vanderhoek followed him in a vehicle. During Vanderhoek’s first court appearance, prosecuting attorney Luka Vitasovic described the prosecution’s theory in unusually direct terms, saying Vanderhoek had essentially “hunted down” Collins by driving aggressively and revving his engine after the earlier confrontation had dissipated. That characterization was an argument by the prosecution, not an independent finding at the time. More than two years later, however, the jury’s murder verdict showed that jurors did not accept the defense claim that the fatal shot was legally justified.

The physical layout near the home also became significant. Reports based on the investigative record said Collins and Vanderhoek were on opposite sides of a chain-link fence when the bow was fired. The neighbor saw Collins near the fence and later heard a loud thump before seeing him collapse in the driveway with the arrow wound. Prosecutors cited the separation between the men as evidence against Vanderhoek’s assertion that he faced an immediate danger requiring deadly force. The fence did not erase evidence of the earlier fight or Vanderhoek’s documented injuries, but it gave jurors another fact to consider when deciding what threat existed when the fatal shot was released.

The prosecution did not have to persuade jurors that no fight had occurred. Instead, the trial centered on what the confrontation had become by the time Collins was killed. Vanderhoek had told deputies that he did not know what else to do, according to reports describing his statements after the shooting. The state’s evidence portrayed Collins as having moved away before Vanderhoek pursued him, with another confrontation later occurring near the residence. In reaching a guilty verdict, the jury rejected the contention that the circumstances legally excused the killing as self-defense. The verdict converted a case that had begun with an accusation and a disputed account into a criminal conviction, though sentencing remained a separate stage.

The case had kept Vanderhoek in custody through its lengthy path to trial. He was 46 when he was arrested in 2024 and was listed as 49 when the verdict was reported in September 2026. At his first appearance, a judge set bail at $2 million. He pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and continued to contest the state’s account as the case moved toward trial. Local court records later showed the jury trial before Clark County Superior Court Judge Gregory Gonzales. The verdict was returned in September, more than two years after deputies first responded to the residential block where Collins died.

For Collins’ family, the legal arguments unfolded alongside a much more personal loss. His sister, Sabrina Meyer, described him in later reporting as an older brother who stayed in contact with his relatives and remembered important occasions. She recalled keeping a voicemail in which he sang a birthday message in a deliberately high-pitched voice, a recording that became meaningful after his death. Her description offered a view of Collins beyond the brief label of “acquaintance” that appeared in the earliest police account and beyond the evidence jurors had to consider about the confrontation itself.

The verdict also clarified why details from the first morning of the investigation carried such weight. Vanderhoek’s 911 call established that he acknowledged firing the bow. His injuries supported his claim that violence had occurred before the shooting. The witness account supplied an outside description of Collins walking away and Vanderhoek following him. The fence supplied physical context for the final confrontation. Together, those facts gave jurors a sequence to evaluate rather than a simple choice between believing that a fight happened or did not happen. Their decision was that the killing amounted to second-degree murder despite the defense argument that Vanderhoek had acted to protect himself.

Vanderhoek was scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 30 in Clark County Superior Court. A review of the publicly available reporting and court material for this Nov. 7 update did not provide a sufficiently reliable account of the outcome of that scheduled proceeding. The conviction is therefore the latest material development that can be stated here with confidence, while the precise sentencing disposition remains unconfirmed in the sources reviewed.

Author note: Last updated Nov. 7, 2026.