SPOKANE, Wash. — A former trucking company operator from North Dakota’s Bakken oil patch was due in federal court in eastern Washington on Tuesday to face sentencing for his conviction on charges of orchestrating the contract killings of two business rivals.
A U.S. District Court jury in Spokane found James Terry Henrikson guilty in February of 11 felony counts, including murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, solicitation to commit murder-for-hire and a drug offense.
The conviction, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, stems from the slayings of two associates of Henrikson — Douglas Carlile, who was shot in Spokane in December 2013, and Kristopher Clarke, who was bludgeoned to death in February 2012. Clarke’s body has never been found.
Prosecutors cast Henrikson in court documents and at his trial as a vindictive, ruthless businessman determined to eliminate anyone he viewed as an impediment to his various enterprises in western North Dakota’s petroleum fields.
The case has come to symbolize the darker side of an energy boom that saw a rapid expansion of drilling rigs, trucking and work camps all tied to a resurgence in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of the region’s vast Bakken oil shale reserves.
Carlile was described by prosecutors as an investor who owed Henrikson money and refused to give up his stake in an oil lease that was of interest to Henrikson.
Clarke was an employee of Henrikson’s North Dakota-based trucking company whom Henrikson regarded as disloyal. He believed Clarke was planning either to join a competing trucking firm or start one of his own, prosecutors said.
Five other men have been convicted in the murder-for-hire schemes.
Timothy Suckow, who was paid $20,000 by Henrikson and pleaded guilty to carrying out both killings, was sentenced last week to 30 years in prison. Two other co-defendants, Lazaro Pesina and Robby Joe Wahrer, received prison terms of 12 years and 10 years, respectively.
Another, Robert Andrew Delao, who pleaded guilty to helping arrange Carlile’s killing by acting as a middleman between Henrikson and Suckow, faces sentencing in August. The final co-defendant, Todd David Bates, is slated for sentencing in June.