A Vancouver man pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder, a charge stemming from an argument he had with a friend that ended in a fatal shooting at his home in the Hearthwood neighborhood.
TJ Patrick Ferres, 57, opted to take a plea deal but appeared to have misunderstood what was being offered by the prosecution during his hearing in Clark County Superior Court.
Ferres faces a sentencing range of 123 to 220 months. The plea agreement stipulates that the prosecution can argue for a sentence between 150 to 220 months.
“Wow, news to me,” Ferres said, before stopping the hearing to spend about a half-hour in a conference room with his defense attorney, Steve Thayer.
When Ferres returned to the courtroom, he told Judge Daniel Stahnke that he had resolved the issues with his attorney.
Ferres took a long pause before entering his guilty plea.
Then, Thayer read a statement outlining that his client shot 37-year-old Ian P. McKay with intent to kill. In the statement, Ferres argues he was acting in self-defense but believes a jury could convict him if the case went to trial.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Vancouver police responded shortly after 4 a.m. Jan. 22, 2017, to a disturbance involving a weapon at Ferres’ residence. When officers arrived, they found McKay lying on the floor in the kitchen with a gunshot wound to the side of his body. McKay was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives determined Ferres and McKay had been drinking and got into an argument that turned deadly, according to the affidavit.
The prosecution previously argued there was evidence that Ferres retrieved a shotgun from another room before the shooting, and stomped on the victim’s head after he shot him — proof that he intended to kill McKay.
Ferres was initially accused of second-degree murder, but prosecutors later upgraded the charge to first-degree murder.
In March 2017, Sharon McKay, the victim’s mother, filed a personal injury and wrongful death suit against Ferres in Superior Court on behalf of her deceased son and his two minor daughters. The complaint seeks economic damages for funeral and burial expenses and losses to McKay’s estate, with interest, as well as the value of past and future economic damages, including money, goods and services McKay’s children would have received if he lived.
The civil case will move forward after Ferres is sentenced Oct. 22.
