But thanks to an intense investigation that ranged as far afield as Delaware, West Virginia State Police and wildlife officials were able to track the shooter, Robert Leroy Tobias, to his home in Millersburg, Pa.

Tobias, 58, pleaded no contest to wanton endangerment and guilty to negligent shooting and failure to render aid in September. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

Like the death of Nicholas Caldwell, a Kanawha County teenager killed by a fellow turkey hunter in April 2008, Stewart's death will have long-lasting repercussions.

In April 2009, at the urging of Caldwell's father, the Legislature made failure to render aid to a wounded hunter a felony. And in the aftermath of Stewart's death, West Virginia entered into the Wildlife Violator Compact, joining 31 other states in a reciprocity agreement.

"This cooperative interstate effort will enhance West Virginia's ability to protect and manage the state's wildlife resources for the benefit of all residents and visitors," Gov. Joe Manchin said last week.

Now, a hunter who violates West Virginia wildlife laws and regulations can have his or her license suspended in the 31 other member states.

'I knew he wasn't lost'

Stewart grew up in Walkersville, Lewis County, hunting deer and turkeys, but his true love was fishing, according to his widow, Tonya Stewart. Between the hunting and the bass fishing tournaments, the 32-year-old civil engineer was an accomplished outdoorsman.

"I never worried about Shawn when he was in the woods, hunting," she told the Sunday Gazette-Mail recently.

She had known Shawn in high school, but they hadn't connected as a couple until they ran into each other at the Gator Bowl in 2004. The following year, they married, and in 2007 they moved into a log house that Shawn had largely built himself.

In July 2008, their son, Zane, was born.

"Shawn was just the kind of person who got along with everybody," she said. "He was the kind of person who would always help anybody who needed help."

Early on the morning of April 27, he went turkey hunting with two friends in the public hunting area of Stonewall Jackson State Park, according to a 223-page criminal investigation report prepared by State Police Cpl. D.L. Cayton. When Stewart missed his 11 a.m. rendezvous with his buddies, they looked for him for several hours before they borrowed a cell phone from a passing hunter and reported him missing.

Troopers from the Weston detachment and officials with the state Division of Natural Resources organized a search that afternoon, but Stewart was still missing when they suspended the search at 11 p.m. until the next morning.

Stewart's friends and family members kept searching throughout the night, Cayton noted in the report.

"The later it got towards dark, the more I knew something was wrong," Tonya Stewart said. "I knew he wasn't lost. I thought for a while that he was hurt and he couldn't walk, but I thought if that was the case, he would've fired his gun."

Just before noon the following day, a volunteer searcher found Shawn Stewart's body, slumped over near the base of a tree.

A silver canoe and a camouflage hat

Initially, investigators didn't have much to go on. Stewart had been killed by a shotgun blast, but the woods were full of hunters carrying shotguns.

And although they found a red wad cup about 10 yards from Stewart, investigators could not find a shotgun shell casing. Cayton also found a white diaphragm call, used to lure gobbler turkeys to the hunter, in an unmarked, clear plastic box another 15 feet back, according to the report.

About a mile away, on the shore of the Charles Run Cove, another trooper found a Red Head brand ball cap with a face net and fake leaves attached to it.

Cayton and Michael Spangler, a conservation officer with the DNR, immediately began canvassing hunters in the area, asking them if they had seen anything. Some reported seeing two unidentified men in a silver canoe, which corresponded with Stewart's friends' recollection of having seen a truck with Pennsylvania plates and a wooden boat rack built into the bed.

On the following day, State Police Sgt. J.M. Garrett went to the Weston Wal-Mart and compiled a list of hunting licenses that had been issued to Pennsylvania residents.

Garrett and Cayton also decided that the camouflage cap required additional scrutiny.

"[We] concluded that, even though this item had been discovered approximately 3/4 miles from the scene, it could possibly be an item that had been inadvertently dropped by the responsible shooter while attempting to quickly leave this area," Cayton wrote in his report.

The investigators scrupulously ran down every tip. They watched surveillance videos from gas stations and grocery stores, hoping to catch a glimpse of a truck with a silver canoe.

They interviewed everyone they could find who had been in the area, collecting shotguns, ammunition and DNA samples from numerous cooperating witnesses.

They scanned registries at local motels and campgrounds, looking for anyone who appeared to have checked out suddenly.

There were several dead ends. One local hunter told a story full of inconsistencies, and reportedly told his sister, "If they would have found him on [April 27], he would have lived"; an anonymous caller from Clarksburg said that she saw her neighbor cut a rack out of the bed of his truck, and he had covered his boat with a tarp.

Neither lead panned out.

On May 1, Cayton searched the Internet for information about the brand of hat found on the shore. After speaking to the manufacturer, he learned that a vast number of that model had been sold in numerous states, including West Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to his account.

"However, during this inquiry, [I] learned that a sporting goods store in the Weston area, Jerry's Sporting Goods, was a distributor of some Red Head brand products," Cayton's report states.

Garrett went to the store, and reviewed video footage of four Red Head brand caps that had been sold during the period just before the shooting. In one, an unidentified man who drove a truck with a wooden rack in the bed bought a hat, but he paid cash.

Three days later, Garrett went back to the Wal-Mart and looked at video footage relating to hunting license sales, and saw an identical truck.

The men in question, Robert Tobias and Edward Howard, were from Millersburg, Pa.

40 percent sure

At Cayton's request, Pennsylvania state troopers met with Tobias on May 22 and asked him if he still had the hat he bought in Weston. Although he first denied buying the hat, Tobias then said he lost it while hunting in West Virginia, according to the report.

When asked if he might have accidentally shot Stewart, Tobias avoided a direct answer, saying: "I've been hunting 40 years."

Later, when Cayton contacted Tobias to set up his own interview, Tobias told him that he'd have to talk to his lawyer.

During Cayton and Garrett's first meeting with Tobias on June 5, he said he hadn't fired his gun on the day Stewart was killed. He let them take a DNA sample, but became "very nervous and concerned," Cayton wrote.

Six days later, Tobias' lawyer called Cayton and said his client wanted to come clean.

During a confession that lasted almost two hours, Tobias admitted that he had been stalking a turkey when he had accidentally shot and killed Stewart. Pressed by Spangler, he said he hadn't made sure that the turkey had a visible beard, as required for spring hunting in West Virginia, before he shot.

Tobias said he panicked when he saw Stewart was dead, and picked up his shell casing to try to hide evidence he was there. Cayton concluded that he probably dropped his diaphragm call, which was made by a neighbor in Pennsylvania, when he stooped to pick up the shell casing.

When asked how sure he was that he had been shooting at a turkey and not a hunter, Tobias answered, "Well, I guess 40 percent."

'How do you pull the trigger?'

Kanawha County assistant prosecutor Fred Giggenbach, who handled the Caldwell case, was appointed as special prosecutor in the Tobias case. He became particularly troubled when he learned that Tobias had kept hunting on the day after he killed Stewart.

"During the course of our investigation of the case, I also found out through Pennsylvania and New York officials and their respective DNR departments and a witness, that Tobias had also hunted in [there] after this tragic incident," he said.

This information prompted Giggenbach, who has hunted in Lewis County himself for the last 10 years, and other officials to push for West Virginia to join the Wildlife Violator Compact.

"Hunting and outdoor activities are an integral part of the fabric of most West Virginians' lives," he said. "Safe and ethical hunting is a fantastic way for young people in this state to appreciate the natural beauty of West Virginia and have lifelong memories of family enjoyment."

 While she is grateful that authorities located and prosecuted Tobias, Tonya Stewart has trouble understanding how Tobias could continue hunting after killing her husband. He even reported killing a turkey in New York, she said.

"How do you pull the trigger and kill another animal without having a visualization of Shawn?" she said.

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.