Hunter charged in fatal shooting

Fired at deer in woods, Lonsdale man tells authorities

A Lonsdale man arrested by Saline County deputies earlier this week faces manslaughter and other charges after he fatally shot a man while hunting on New Year’s Eve, authorities said.

Deputies arrested William Bettis, 52, on Tuesday afternoon, more than a week after they and Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officers responding to a shooting and found a man later identified as Franklin Ramirez, 27, dead at 8101 Narrows Road in Londale.

Ramirez had been shot in the neck and was found between some trees with his pants around his ankles, according to an arrest affidavit.

A woman who said she was Ramirez’s close friend and coworker told reporters from THV11 that Ramirez was working as a roofer that day and left to go to the bathroom, but didn’t come back to work.

Bettis cooperated with police and showed them where he was when he fired the shot that killed Ramirez, the affidavit states. A deputy described him as visibly shaken.

He told police he was hunting near a four-wheeler trail in the area when he spotted a group of deer running through the woods and laid prone to shoot at them. Search dogs later located a spent shell casing in the area where Bettis told investigators he was.

A team worked to reconstruct the shooting, the affidavit states, but it did not give any information about their findings.

Bettis was booked in the Saline County jail Tuesday on charges of felony manslaughter, hunting endangerment resulting in death and offenses related to his hunting license and hunter education certificate. He was held in lieu of $25,000 bond.

He was released Wednesday afternoon, the jail’s online inmate roster showed. Court records did not give any details about when his bond was paid.

A GoFundMe fundraiser had raised $9,500 by Friday night to return Ramirez’s body to Guatemala.