Deepening the mystery, the Investor was tied to two other boats that were tied to the dock — the Defiant and Decade. Per SitNews, whoever committed the crime seemed to already be on the boat — or somehow got on the boat and past the two other crews with no one noticing. According to crew members on those two other boats, early the next morning, an unidentified man was seen onboard the Investor as it detached itself from the Defiant and Decade and made its way toward the island, where it would later burn.
Similar to what Lee Axmaker witnessed, a man also returned several times to Craig using the Investor’s skiff before the fire was started but after Coulthurst and the other victims were shot and killed. The man was a stranger, though, and might have escaped on any number of vessels leaving Craig’s harbor to work the fishing season. The only identifiable characteristic of the man on the skiff was a pockmarked face. He was otherwise in his 20s, witnesses said.
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Investigators narrowed suspects down to three people, one of them John Kenneth Peel from Bellingham, Washington. Peel had formerly worked for Coulthurst, and their relationship ended badly, offering a possible motive, The Cinemaholic writes. According to Holy Hanson, who knew the Coulthursts (via People), given the preponderance of evidence against him, “We never could understand why Peel wasn’t the prime suspect from the beginning.”
