Trial To Begin For Man Accused In Insurance Plot Man Allegedly Killed In-Law, Used Woman To Try More Slayings

A Pasco man accused of killing his brother-in-law 13 years ago and of plotting to kill two other men, all for insurance money, goes on trial this week.

Jury selection in Benton County Superior Court is to begin Monday for Dale M. Norwick, 42.

He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his brother-inlaw, William Jewell of Kennewick, and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in an alleged plot to kill Kenneth Harris of Finley and Todd Roberts, a former Kennewick resident now in the U.S. Air Force.

Prosecutors contend Norwick pushed Jewell to his death from Chandler Ridge, near Benton City, in 1982. Jewell, a Hanford Nuclear Reservation patrolman, had stopped to take pictures of eagles on his way to work. His death originally was ruled accidental.

Court records show Norwick, then an insurance salesman, collected $238,000 as a beneficiary of a lifeinsurance policy he had sold to Jewell.

In the conspiracy schemes, prosecutors allege Norwick and 38-yearold Kathe Lee Harris, who says she was Norwick’s lover, devised a scheme to kill two men for insurance money.

Kathe Lee Harris told police Norwick instructed her to romance the men so she could collect their insurance policies after their deaths.

According to court records, Kathe Lee Harris said she dated Roberts and lived with him in 1991. But the alleged plot fizzled when he refused to get life insurance.

She also told police she married Kenneth Harris in 1993 and planned with Norwick to kill him for $1.2 million in insurance money.

She told detectives that the plan was for her to buy a camera for her husband and persuade him to take some photographs near a cliff. Then Norwick would sneak up and push Harris off the cliff - similar to the way Norwick’s brother-in-law died in 1982, prosecutors say.

Police were tipped to the plot and canceled Harris’ $750,000 insurance policy.

Harris told detectives he and his wife began having marital difficulties after the policy was canceled, and he has since divorced her.

Kathe Lee Harris agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

“We didn’t have a case without her,” said Prosecutor Andy Miller.

“The informant we had wasn’t able to give us specific enough information.”

Although Kathe Lee Harris was involved in the plan against her exhusband, Miller said Norwick was the mastermind. “Her culpability does pale in comparison to his,” the prosecutor said.

If convicted on the murder charge, Norwick faces up to life in prison, Miller said. He also faces two consecutive sentences of 15 to 20 years in prison on the conspiracy charges.

Norwick’s attorneys, Bob Thompson and Dan Arnold, declined comment.

Norwick has claimed he was not involved with Kathe Lee Harris.

His lawyers contended in court briefs that Kathe Lee Harris may suffer from erotomania, a disorder in which a person is deluded into thinking another person is in love with them.

Kathe Lee Harris and her attorney, Jim Egan, declined to discuss the case.