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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Attempted strangulation now a felony

A Coeur d’Alene woman trying to break up with her husband found herself pinned to the floor of their home Tuesday, her husband’s hands squeezed around her neck, the Coeur d’Alene Police reported.

She escaped, and called 911 from a neighbor’s home, police said.

It was the latest of several attempted strangulation cases to make its way to court in the two weeks since the Legislature passed – and the governor signed – a law making attempted strangulation a felony.

The law was signed April 6 with an emergency clause putting it into immediate effect. Since then, at least four men in Kootenai County have been charged with the felony and are waiting out their court hearings in jail, according to law enforcement agencies. The crime has a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison.

“The new statute is a recognition that about 60 percent of our homicides in Idaho are based in, or because of, intimate-partner or family violence,” said Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas.

Deputy Prosecutor Ken Brooks, who heads up the county’s misdemeanor domestic violence cases, said about 20 to 30 percent of the cases he’s had involve strangulation.

“The problem with strangulation is you often don’t get the injury of the neck, but we felt it was serious enough that it ought to be a felony,” he said.

Canyon County Deputy Prosecutor Darren McKenzie, who testified in favor of the new felony law before the Legislature, said it takes little more than a minute to strangle someone to death.

“It’s the most intimate of attacks,” he said Friday during a phone interview. “Looking your victim in the eye, you’re staring them down while you’re squeezing the life out of them. It’s a horrible, horrible thing.”

Until this month, unless the strangulation caused serious enough injuries to be obvious to a jury several months later, most cases were prosecuted as misdemeanor domestic batteries. Most physical evidence from strangulation disappears quickly, meaning violators faced few penalties and were quickly out of jail.

Scott R. Bennett, 39, made his first appearance in court Thursday on the charges of attempted strangulation, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Bennett is accused of choking his wife, Katie Lynn, during a struggle over her cell phone while she was trapped in their house Tuesday afternoon.

She told police that she had asked her husband to leave, he became upset and started pushing her. When she said she was going to call police, they started fighting over the phone.

She eventually escaped through a bedroom window. The next day, according to a police report, Scott Bennett returned with another man to get some things from the house, but she wouldn’t let him in. As he was leaving, she saw him wave a gun in the air, she told police.

Coeur d’Alene Police later located Bennett and arrested him.

“Usually strangulation occurs toward the end of the spectrum of violence in a relationship,” McKenzie said.

In the first attempted strangulation case to be prosecuted in Kootenai County, the suspect was already on probation for a previous domestic battery conviction. Lonny C. Holt, 44, is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing on domestic battery and strangulation charges Wednesday.

Holt was arrested on April 12, his birthday, after his girlfriend called 911. She said Holt choked her while they were sitting in her van near the Fernan Lake boat launch. Holt had accused her of cheating on him while he was in jail, she told police, adding that he had beaten her on several earlier occasions.

The new law helps police make an arrest and separate a suspect and victim, said Capt. Ben Wolfinger of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office.

It removed from law enforcement the burden of proof that the suspect was trying to kill or seriously injure the victim, he said.

“This will give our officers in the field something where they can take definitive action,” he said.