SKAMANIA COUNTY, Wash. - Authorities have arrested a Vancouver middle school math teacher in connection with the fatal shooting of a commercial bear grass picker in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest earlier this month.

Craig A. Sjoberg, a 55-year-old teacher at Shahala Middle School, was arrested at his Camas, Wash., home Monday on suspicion of first-degree manslaughter in the death of 30-year-old Juan Rojas Cortez of Tacoma, Wash., according to Skamania County Undersheriff David Cox.

He was being held at the Skamania County jail pending arraignment.

Cortez was mysteriously shot in the mid-section while out picking bear grass alone on Nov. 1 in the Skookum Meadows area off of Forest Service 32 Road about 2.5 miles northwest of Lone Butte in central Skamania County. Two co-workers in the area found his body after he did not return at quitting time, the sheriff's office said.

It was the opening day of elk hunting season in the area, and hunters reported hearing a shot between noon and 3 p.m. that day that they linked to a man driving a white SUV who answered to a name similar to "Craig."

Cox did not say how investigators linked the death to Sjoberg, but he did confirm that Sjoberg was hunting in the area at the time of the death.

Sjoberg, who has been with the Evergreen School District since 2002, was placed on administrative leave.