On October 12, two friends and coworkers – John Lee Stapleton, of Kent, Wa., and John Fergerson, Sr., of Bremerton – flew to a small town in southeastern Alaska to go fishing, court documents filed this week say.
Their first day in Yakutat, a village on the Gulf of Alaska with a population under 600, was spent fishing, Stapleton told police. But the second day, according to charging documents, was spent socializing and “drinking heavily, consuming beer and vodka.”
Around 3 a.m. the next morning, a fight broke out that left Fergerson, 61, with fatal stab wounds to the chest, and Stapleton, 46, in prison facing murder charges.
What happened in between will be litigated in the coming weeks and months, and discussed in the small fishing village, which has not seen a murder in over 20 years.
Alaska District Attorney Angela D. Kemp filed second degree murder charges against Stapleton on October 15. The filing documents say Yakutat Police Department received a call from a female witness requesting medical assistance around 3:20 a.m. on October 14. On arrival, police saw Stapleton “kneeling over Fergerson” with “blood on his face, hands and clothing.”
Three stab wounds were noted by police on Fergerson’s chest, “above his heart,” prosecutors said.
Stapleton told police he was acting in self-defense. He said he was “in the kitchen eating a steak and some fruit pie,” charging documents state, when “Fergerson became very angry” and approached him “in an aggressive manner.” He was holding a knife in his hand, he told police, to cut the steak.
Stapleton said he “had to push Fergerson away,” the prosecutor wrote. He pushed Fergerson “two to three times” and he fell to the floor, he said. According to police, “Stapleton demonstrated pushing Fergerson away by closing his right hand into a fist, as if holding something and an open left hand.”
A female witness was interviewed by Alaska State Troopers, and told a different story.
She said “she was also drinking heavily” that day, the charging documents state, and that prior to the incident, Stapleton was very drunk and had gone to bed. She and Fergerson were watching TV, she said, when Fergerson “asked her to walk around the room in her underwear. She did not,” the prosecutor wrote.
“Thereafter,” the filing continues, “she left the room and when she came back into the kitchen area from outside, she saw Fergerson on the living room floor, on his back, with blood coming from his mouth. Stapleton appeared and began doing CPR,” the witness told police.
She said she “speculated Stapleton may have overheard Fergerson asking her to walk around in her underwear, causing a jealous reaction,” the prosecutor wrote.
An approximately 8-inch smooth edge kitchen knife was found “underneath a shirt removed from Fergerson’s body,” at the scene, according to police.
Stapleton was arrested and charged with two counts of second degree murder, an unclassified felony punishable by up to life in prison. Transport was ordered to state prison in Juneau with bail set at $500,000. An initial court date is pending, per the Alaska Courts system.
