David Collins Sr. was remembered as a devoted older brother after Richard Vanderhoek was convicted of killing him with a bow.
VANCOUVER, Wash. — David Collins Sr. entered the public record of his killing first as an unidentified man in a driveway and later as a 42-year-old homicide victim, but his sister remembered something different: a brother who called to check on family, remembered important dates and could still make relatives laugh.
That family portrait resurfaced after a Clark County jury convicted Richard “Cole” Vanderhoek of second-degree murder in Collins’ April 2, 2024, death. Vanderhoek had maintained that he acted in self-defense during a violent confrontation outside a home in northeast Vancouver. Jurors rejected that defense after hearing a case that included evidence of Vanderhoek’s injuries, an eyewitness account that Collins tried to leave an earlier fight, Vanderhoek’s pursuit in a vehicle and the later shooting while the men were separated by a chain-link fence. The conviction brought a legal answer to the killing without changing the loss Collins’ relatives had carried for more than two years.
Collins’ sister, Sabrina Meyer, told a newspaper that one of the keepsakes left behind was a voicemail saved from her daughter’s birthday. In it, Collins sang in a deliberately high-pitched voice. Meyer described the singing as terrible and beautiful at the same time because it captured how her brother could make people laugh. She also remembered that he regularly checked in and did not forget family occasions. Her comments offered one of the few publicly reported descriptions of Collins as a person rather than as the victim at the center of a probable-cause declaration, medical examiner’s ruling and murder trial.
Early official accounts contained little of that context. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office initially reported that a man had called 911 at approximately 6:44 a.m. to say he had shot another man with a bow and arrow following an altercation. Deputies went to the 3200 block of Northeast Petticoat Lane and found a man dead in a driveway. Vanderhoek, who made the call, gave investigators the victim’s first name and described him as an acquaintance. Authorities later identified the dead man as David Joseph Collins Sr. The available record does not establish a more detailed relationship between the two men, making “acquaintance” the most precise public description.
The morning had begun with conflict roughly 40 minutes before the emergency call. A witness told investigators that two men were fighting outside the residence around 6:05 a.m. One of them, later identified as Collins, walked away. The witness said the other appeared to follow in a vehicle. Authorities said the men later returned to the property and another confrontation developed. The witness account gave investigators a sequence that eventually became central at trial because it indicated that Collins had separated himself from the first fight before the events leading to the fatal shot.
When deputies encountered Vanderhoek, they found evidence that he too had been involved in physical violence. Reports based on the probable-cause declaration described a visible injury on the left side of his face, scrapes on his chest and elbow and complaints of pain. Vanderhoek repeatedly asked deputies to photograph the injuries. He told investigators Collins had assaulted him and said he had told Collins to stop. He was taken to an area hospital for treatment of minor injuries before being arrested. Those facts later supported the defense argument that jurors should view the shooting in the context of an attack Vanderhoek said he had suffered.
But prosecutors argued that the shooting could not be assessed only by looking at the first fight. The witness said Collins walked away and Vanderhoek followed him in a vehicle. Reports describing the later confrontation said Collins was outside a chain-link fence while Vanderhoek was on the opposite side with the bow. The witness heard a thump and then saw Collins wounded in the driveway. At Vanderhoek’s first court appearance, prosecuting attorney Luka Vitasovic argued that the defendant had essentially “hunted down” Collins after the confrontation had dissipated. It was the state’s characterization of the evidence, and Vanderhoek continued to dispute that interpretation through his claim of self-defense.
The medical examiner later provided the formal finding that transformed the initial death investigation into a documented homicide. Collins was 42, and the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that he died from the arrow wound. The manner of death was classified as homicide, a medical finding that describes death caused by another person and is distinct from the jury’s later decision about criminal responsibility. Vanderhoek had already been arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder after receiving medical treatment. At his first appearance, a judge set his bail at $2 million, and the case moved slowly toward trial.
For more than two years, Vanderhoek remained the accused rather than a convicted murderer. He pleaded not guilty, and the defense retained the ability to challenge the prosecution’s interpretation of the encounter. At trial, that challenge centered on self-defense. The existence of Vanderhoek’s injuries meant jurors were not considering a case in which the state claimed no physical fight had occurred. Instead, they had to decide whether the threat Vanderhoek said he faced justified the use of deadly force when he fired the bow. The prosecution stressed the interruption between encounters, Collins’ movement away and the fence separating the two men.
The verdict resolved that question against Vanderhoek. Jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder in September 2026. The decision established criminal liability for Collins’ death and rejected the defense theory that the fatal shot was legally justified. It also changed the language required to describe the case. Before the verdict, Vanderhoek was accused of murder and entitled to the presumption of innocence. After jurors returned their decision, he stood convicted, although the separate sentencing process remained necessary before the final punishment could be stated.
The conviction cannot answer every question surrounding Collins’ final morning. Public reporting does not provide a complete account of why the disagreement began or establish a detailed history between the two men. The sources reviewed describe Collins as Vanderhoek’s acquaintance and document an argument that became physical, but they do not support assigning a motive beyond the dispute itself. That distinction matters because the unusual weapon and circumstances can easily overshadow how limited the verified record remains about what prompted the conflict. What the jury determined was narrower and more consequential: whatever had happened earlier, the fatal shooting met the requirements for second-degree murder.
Meyer’s comments about her brother provide a counterweight to the case’s focus on legal elements, fences, vehicles and injuries. She recalled Collins not for the confrontation that ended his life but for ordinary family contact and humor. The saved birthday voicemail became a way of keeping his voice present after his death. Such memories do not prove or disprove anything in a murder trial, and the jury’s task was to decide the evidence rather than measure the family’s grief. But they explain why the verdict represented more than the resolution of a criminal charge to the people who had known Collins before his name appeared in court records.
Contemporary reports said Vanderhoek was scheduled for sentencing Sept. 30. The available reporting and public court material reviewed for this Nov. 7 update did not provide a reliable, independently verifiable account of the disposition of that scheduled hearing. No sentence is therefore stated here as fact. What remains confirmed is that the Clark County jury found Vanderhoek guilty of second-degree murder in Collins’ death, ending the trial stage of a case that began with a 911 call and an unidentified man lying in a residential driveway.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 7, 2026.