The Aug. 30 shooting death of an Oak Harbor teenager may have been the result of a game or joke that went horribly wrong, according to search warrant affidavits filed in Island County Superior Court.

Oak Harbor Police Chief Kevin Dresker said detectives hope to finish up the investigation this week and forward the case to the county prosecutor’s office for a charging decision. The investigation into the homicide, he said, was hampered by a lack of cooperation from the three people who police believe were present at the scene of the shooting.

“One of the difficulties with this case is that the people at the scene have not been forthright with us,” he said.

Dresker said investigators hope to reinterview some of the key people and that they are waiting on some test results from the state crime lab.

Ericolis “Eric” Kelley Jr., a 15-year-old high school student, died from a gunshot to the abdomen on Aug. 30. The affidavits state that police are investigating the shooting as manslaughter in the second degree.

Kelley was a popular student known for his big heart and giving nature.

“Eric, as he was affectionately called, was well-known in the community both for his skills as a talented year-round athlete and for his compassion for others,” his obituary states. “At Oak Harbor High School, Eric competed for the Wildcats in football, basketball and track.”

The search warrant affidavits state that police received information that the teenagers may have been playing a game called “Do you believe in God?” when the shooting occurred. One of the affidavits states that a teenager with a handgun ejected the magazine and checked the chamber for a bullet before pointing it at Kelley, asking him the question and pulling the trigger.

The affidavits describe how another one of Kelley’s friends attempted to drive him to the hospital in a black Mustang car, but drove erratically, striking a house and spawning many calls of a vehicle cutting off other cars in traffic. The driver flagged down an ambulance at the intersection of Highway 20 and Swantown Avenue and stopped in the middle of the intersection. The ambulance crew transported the unconscious teenager to the hospital, where he later succumbed to the wound.

The driver told police that he had been at a friend’s house on Crosby Avenue when someone dropped off Kelley after he had already been shot. He said he backed up in the car and struck something that damaged the car door. It was later determined that the car hit a corner of a house, the affidavits state.

A neighbor in the Crosby Road area, however, reported hearing the “pop” of a gun around the time Kelley was shot. Police also located surveillance video that captured the sound of a gun followed by people yelling, the affidavits indicate.

The teenager who lived at the home told officers he wasn’t there at the time of the shooting and didn’t know what happened, the affidavits state. Investigators, however, served a search warrant on him to obtain his cell phone.

Investigators also obtained a search warrant to search the home, which was processed by the state crime lab’s Crime Scene Response Team. The team found three unspent .45 bullets and collected swabs of presumptive blood stains in the bathroom and on the inside of the back door, the affidavits state.