Teenager Faces Trial As An Adult 17-Year-Old Charged With Robbery Of Couple

A Spokane teenager will be tried as an adult in the knifepoint robbery of an elderly North Side couple.

Sampson Shove, 17, is being held in the Spokane County Jail on one count of first-degree robbery.

His bond has been set at $100,000.

Shove and another person are suspected of breaking into a house in the 2100 block of East Rich on Oct. 9 and robbing a woman and her invalid husband.

The victims, both in their 80s, told police they were awakened about 2 a.m. by two men wearing ski masks and brandishing long-bladed knives.

One of the bandits yelled, “Give me your money. Give me all your money.”

The woman told investigators she gave the robbers a shoe box containing about $1,000 in cash. The men took the money, ripped both telephones out of the walls and ran out the back door, the victims said.

The woman then went to a neighbor’s to call police.

On Oct. 31, police were dispatched to Nevada and Empire to check on a person “who wanted to turn himself in for some thing,” according to court records.

Officers found Shove there. He was drunk and wanted to confess to a robbery, officers said.

Shove told them that he and a friend, whom he refused to name, had robbed two old people who live on Rich. His account of the robbery matched what the victims said had happened, and Shove was arrested, police said.

The second robber is still at large.

Shove originally was booked into the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center but was transferred to the jail Tuesday. State law requires that 16- and 17-year-olds charged with certain violent crimes - such as first-degree robbery - be tried in adult court.

As a juvenile, Shove has been convicted of several crimes since February 1996, including car prowling, car theft and burglary. In April, he pleaded guilty to attempted fourth-degree assault and served 20 days’ detention, according to Juvenile Court records.

, DataTimes