The owner of a North Dakota trucking company faces up to 40 years in prison for his role in the deaths of an employee and a business partner.
James Henrikson, the owner of Bakken trucking company Blackstone LLC, told prosecutors that he hired a hit man to kill truck driver Kristopher Clarke in 2013, after discovering Clarke’s plans to quit his company and start a competing trucking business.
Henrickson paid Timothy Suckow $20,000 to carry out the hit. Suckow confronted Clarke at a local truck stop and beat him to death with a jack handle, then buried the body. His remains were never found.
Henrikson also plead guilty to hiring the same hit man to kill his business partner, 63-year-old Doug Carlisle. Henrikson claimed that Carlisle owed him $2 million dollars and refused to pay. Carlisle was shot to death in his home in Spokane, Washington, in front of his wife.
According to KXLY.com, Carlisle called one of his sons the night before he was killed and told him “If I disappear or wake up with bullets in my back, promise me you will let everyone know that James Henrikson did it.”
On September 24th, Henrickson plead guilty to both murders and faces up to 40 years in prison, as well as $2 million in restitution to the families of his victims. The hit man, Timothy Suckow, faces up to 30 years in prison.