Stray bullet survivor may never know who shot him

It’s been a week since 23-year-old Alyssa Smith was hit and killed by a stray bullet fired by target shooters near Ferndale. Whatcom County prosecutors have yet to decide if they can charge anyone with her death.

But her story encouraged a Newcastle family to come forward about their “near miss” with another stray bullet fired this year.

It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Day. Paul McNabb was walking back from his brother’s house at Crystal Village, a vacation community near Crystal Mountain. He had forgotten dog food and had picked up a bag from his brother. That’s when he heard the high-pitched and distinctive sound of a bullet flying through the air.

“Something whizzed past my head and struck my thumb and right into the dog food and kind of blew the bag apart,” McNabb said.

The bullet came from several hundred feet above him and behind him in the hills where a group of people were target shooting, but McNabb had no idea at the time that the shot had come from them. “Had I known it was them, I probably would have gone up to them and maybe talked to them about it,” he said. “At the time, I really didn’t think it would have come from so far away.”

McNabb’s wife found a .38 caliber bullet on the ground the next day, and he immediately starting replaying every step he had made on that walk from his brother’s house, wondering “what if.”

“It was icy on the road so I decided to walk on the shoulder where I had a little more grip under my feet,” he said. “You think of a million things after something like that happens of what-if’s or what could have been.”

It turns out that stray bullets are somewhat common near Crystal Village. People have found bullet holes in their hot tubs. Families report bullets hitting their houses. In one case, a community center was hit by a bullet that came from a mile away. “People shoot up there quite a bit,” McNabb said. “It takes a different tone now after the incident that happened to me.”

Since McNabb’s near miss, the forest service road where the shot came from has been closed.

McNabb said he has no problem with people target shooting or exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, but he wishes there could be more training and more education on doing it safely. “You have to go through the learning curve to get a driver’s license,” he said. “You would think, maybe, you would be able to get some sort of training on firing and handling and target-shooting with a firearm.”

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office is still looking into his case, but it’s likely the person who fired the shot will never be found.