Driver Sentenced For Two Deaths

Unpublished correction: Fred Stewart is a Stevens County Superior Court judge.

A drunken motorist who struck five people and killed two of them on Aug. 22 was sentenced Friday to 7-1/2 years in prison.

The sentence by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Fred Stewart is a year shy of the standard-range maximum. Chief Deputy Prosecutor David Soukup requested a 17-year sentence for David R. Davis, who was convicted last month of two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular assault.

Davis, 38, of Kettle Falls, Wash., had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17 percent two hours after his Jeep skidded into a family of three, who were fishing at a roadside bridge near Kettle Falls, and two boys on bicycles. The legal threshold for intoxication is 0.10 percent.

Nancy Gillispie, 43, and her daughter, Jennifer, 15, were killed, and son John, 12, suffered head and hip fractures. Bicyclist Matthew Garrison, 15, had a broken hand and his companion, David Ritchart, 18, was bruised and “emotionally traumatized,” Soukup said. All the victims are from Kettle Falls.

Soukup said Davis had no liability insurance at the time of the accident, and his license was suspended for the same reason in 1988. Davis also was convicted three times for driving while his license was suspended.

, DataTimes