Disgruntled Civilian Employee Sentenced: Retrial and Restitution

James Michael Wells, a civilian employee at the U.S. Coast Guard Communications Station on Kodiak Island, was convicted twice of murdering two coworkers in the April 2012 Kodiak Coast Guard murders and is serving consecutive life sentences in federal prison. His first conviction was thrown out by the Ninth Circuit in 2017 for prosecutorial misconduct; a second jury reached the same verdict in 2019. A narrow dispute over how restitution can be collected from his retirement account is the only piece of the case still in active litigation.

What Happened at COMMSTA Kodiak

On the morning of April 12, 2012, two men were found shot to death inside the “rigger shop” at Communications Station (COMMSTA) Kodiak, the area where personnel repaired antennas and communications equipment. Both had been killed with a .44-caliber revolver between roughly 7:09 and 7:14 a.m.¹

The victims were Petty Officer First Class James Hopkins, a 41-year-old electronics technician,² and Richard Belisle, a 51-year-old retired Chief Boatswain’s Mate who had stayed on at the station as a civilian.³ Another Coast Guard member discovered them shortly after their shift would have started.⁴ Investigators found no signs of robbery or forced entry, and treated the killings as targeted from the start.¹

The FBI and the Coast Guard Investigative Service ran a joint investigation with help from the Alaska State Troopers.⁴ It took about ten months. The murder weapon was never recovered, and there were no eyewitnesses.⁵ On February 15, 2013, Wells, then 61, was arrested at his Alaska home on a federal warrant. A grand jury indicted him four days later on two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of murder of a federal officer or employee, and two counts of using a firearm in a crime of violence resulting in death.⁶

The Government’s Theory and Evidence

Wells worked in the rigger shop alongside Hopkins and Belisle. Prosecutors told jurors he was jealous and resentful: he had fallen behind in his work while the two victims took on more responsibility,⁷ and he was described as “distraught over grievances about his job performance.”⁸

With no weapon, no eyewitnesses, and no blood or physical evidence tying Wells to the scene, the case was entirely circumstantial. It rested on three main threads.

The first was the vehicles. Base security cameras recorded Wells’s white Dodge truck heading toward the airport and rigger shop area at 6:48 a.m., then heading back toward his residence at 7:22 a.m. Prosecutors argued that in the 34-minute gap, Wells returned home, swapped his truck for his wife’s blue Honda CR-V, drove to the rigger shop, killed both men, and went home. Security footage captured a blue SUV matching the Honda passing the rigger shop entrance during that window.⁹

The second was the flat tire. Wells told investigators he was late for work because a nail had punctured his tire, and he left phone messages for the victims after the estimated time of death saying he was running behind. Prosecutors pointed out that the rigger shop itself had jacks and air pumps he could have used on the job.⁵ Forensic analysis found the nail had been manually inserted, and Wells later testified that he had pulled out the original nail and replaced it with a larger one.⁹

The third was his demeanor. Petty Officer Leah Henry testified that while coworkers were visibly shaken, Wells seemed “shocked one moment, but unfazed the next,” and repeatedly rubbed his ears and said they were ringing, something she had never seen him do before.⁵

The defense argued that ten months of searching had turned up nothing physical, and put on a local witness who said he had seen the suspected getaway vehicle far from the crime scene at the time of the shootings.⁷

First Conviction and the Ninth Circuit Reversal

The first trial took place in federal court in Anchorage before Chief District Judge Ralph Beistline. On April 25, 2014, a jury convicted Wells on all six counts.¹⁰ On July 8, 2014, Judge Beistline sentenced him to four consecutive life terms without parole, calling him a “cold-blooded murderer” who acted out of “anger, envy, and jealousy” against his “competition.”¹¹

On December 19, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the convictions and ordered a new trial before a different judge, finding the proceedings “fundamentally unfair.”¹²

Two problems drove the reversal. First, the prosecution had used “criminal profile testimony” as substantive evidence of guilt. Dr. J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist qualified as an expert in “targeted, intended workplace multiple-homicide violence,” had described general characteristics of workplace shooters. In a shop of only seven people, the Ninth Circuit said, that testimony effectively told jurors “that Jim Wells is the person who committed the crime.” The court called it “inherently prejudicial” and “clearly inadmissible.”¹³

Second, after the government dropped the death penalty, prosecutors moved to strip Wells of his second court-appointed attorney. The Ninth Circuit called the move “ethically compromised” and said it carried a “reproachable air of stacking the deck,” leaving a “uniquely beleaguered” federal public defender against three prosecutors with “unlimited resources.” The court told federal prosecutors to “tend to its own knitting” and leave defense staffing to the judiciary.¹³ The reversal also vacated the original restitution order of $1,483,475.¹²

Retrial and Life Sentences

The case was reassigned to U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason “to preserve the appearance of justice.”¹² The government’s theory did not change: the vehicle swap, the .44-caliber revolver, the fabricated flat tire. What changed was the absence of the profile expert whose testimony had tainted the first trial.¹⁴

On October 8, 2019, after about eight hours of deliberation, a jury of six women and six men again found Wells guilty on all six counts.¹ On January 7, 2020, Judge Gleason imposed life on each of the six counts, structured as four consecutive life terms.¹⁵

The 2025 Restitution Ruling

The one piece of the case still moving is financial. After the second conviction, the district court authorized the government to cash out Wells’s Thrift Savings Plan account, worth $449,918.98, as a lump-sum payment toward restitution owed to the victims’ families.¹⁶

On September 26, 2025, the Ninth Circuit ruled for Wells on that narrow point. Judge Jennifer Sung, writing for a panel that included Judges Richard Clifton and Gabriel Sanchez, held that the government cannot cash out a defendant’s TSP account when the plan’s own rules would block the defendant from doing the same thing. Under the Federal Employees’ Retirement Systems Act, a lump-sum TSP withdrawal requires spousal consent, and Wells’s wife had not consented. The court vacated the restitution orders and sent the case back so the district court can decide whether the TSP funds count as “earnings” subject to a 25 percent garnishment cap under federal law. In a concurrence, Judge Clifton suggested that on remand the district court could require Wells’s wife to assert her own claim to the account, rather than letting Wells raise it on her behalf to slow collection.¹⁶

The ruling did not disturb the convictions or the life sentences. Wells remains in federal prison, and the restitution collection proceedings continue on remand.

1
U.S. Department of Justice. James Michael Wells Convicted of Murdering Coast Guard Employees
2
U.S. Coast Guard Enlisted Memorial. James Hopkins
3
Anchorage Daily News. Widow Expresses Relief at Arrest of Suspect in Kodiak Double Homicide
4
CBS News. James Wells, Alaska Man Accused of Killing Two Coast Guard Employees
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Anchorage Daily News. Witnesses at Coast Guard Murder Trial Describe Wells’ Reaction to Crime
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FBI. Kodiak Man Charged With Murders of Two Coast Guard Employees
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Alaska’s News Source. Final Arguments Heard in Second Trial for Accused Murderer James Wells
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Anchorage Daily News. FBI Agent: Coast Guard Murder Suspect Left Little No Evidence Behind
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Alaska Native News. James Michael Wells Convicted of Murdering Coast Guard Employees
10
U.S. Department of Justice. Kodiak Man Convicted of Murder of Coast Guard Employees
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U.S. Department of Justice. Kodiak Man Sentenced to Four Consecutive Life Sentences for Murder of Coast Guard Employees
12
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. United States v. Wells, No. 14-30146
13
Criminal Legal News. Ninth Circuit Warns Prosecutors Against Interfering With Defendants’ Legal Representation, Reverses First-Degree Murder Convictions
14
Alaska Public Media. Second Trial Over Kodiak Coast Guard Double Murder Goes to Jury
15
KMXT. James Michael Wells Sentenced to Life for 2012 USCG COMMSTA Kodiak Double Murders
16
FindLaw. United States v. Wells, No. 23-3969