Shooting remains a mystery

Information - what little there is - conflicts about how a man was shot in the chest Friday night in Flathead County. No one has been arrested and the investigation continues.

Information - what little there is - conflicts about how a man was shot in the chest Friday night in Flathead County. No one has been arrested and the investigation continues.

James Hernvall, 24, is in satisfactory condition at Kalispell Regional Medical Center and will survive three gunshots to the chest, according to Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont.

His wife, Misty Hernvall, 22, called for help from Patrick Creek Road late Friday, saying her husband had been shot.

She told sheriff's deputies that they had been at Scotty's bar earlier, and a car followed them out Airport Road. When the couple stopped their car, two men approached them and asked if they had drugs or money. She said they pointed a gun at her husband and she told them she had money in the trunk of the car. Actually, she had a baseball bat in the trunk that she intended to use, she told officers.

As she rummaged through her trunk, she tried to call her aunt and uncle on her cell phone, she said. One of the men pointed the gun at her, her husband struggled with the man, and he was shot, she said.

The two men left and the Hernvalls drove away, she said. The two men then drove by and fired two more rounds at their vehicle.

However, the two men have a different story.

Travis Hopkins and Jeffrey Smith, both 21, of Kalispell, called the sheriff's office and then came in to give statements after the incident, Dupont said.

"Their story is quite contrary," he said.

They said that James Hernvall menaced them with a tire iron and Smith shot in self-defense. He was hit in the thumb with a bullet.

Dupont said he believes the confrontation was over drugs.

Since she first gave her statement, Misty Hernvall has refused to say more to officers.

"We don't really know what we've got," he said, but, "It wasn't a random drive-by shooting."