Homicide investigation cold, but not over

Steven Allison didn’t want to tell police who had beaten him, and he died before he could change his mind.

Now almost a year later, Spokane police are still looking for someone to tell them what happened to the 44-year-old Spokane resident. They’re not optimistic.

“We still don’t have any clues,” said Sgt. Joe Peterson of the Major Crimes Unit. “We didn’t get dealt a great hand in this.”

Peterson and the lead detective on the case, Tim Madsen, said in an interview last week that they have two “persons of interest” in the homicide but little solid information.

A $2,000 Secret Witness reward offer produced “nothing remarkable,” Madsen said.

A patrol officer found Allison walking on Indiana Avenue, west of Ash Street, shortly after midnight on June 29, 2005. The officer was responding to a call from a homeowner in the 1500 block of West Nora who had just reported being awakened by a bleeding man who pounded on his door.

Officer Jamie Pavlischak reported Allison had two black eyes, was bleeding from facial wounds and a head laceration, and he appeared to be drunk. Pavlischak also saw a herringbone-tread shoe print on Allison’s forehead.

Allison claimed at first that he had fallen down, according to court documents. Then, when asked whether more than three people had beaten him, Allison reportedly said, “Yeah, it was three.”

Police said afterward that Allison was uncooperative and wanted to be left alone, but Pavlischak insisted on driving him to Sacred Heart Medical Center. Pavlischak and other officers didn’t know how severely Allison was injured until the next day, when his relatives called.

Allison was in a coma by then, with a fractured skull and a brain injury. He never regained consciousness and died three days later when his family decided to remove him from life support.

Officers canvassed the areas where Allison had been and came up with little useful information. Still, Madsen said, two “persons of interest” have been identified. They include an ex-boyfriend of the woman with whom Allison was living and one of Allison’s brothers.

In police jargon, a person of interest is someone who warrants investigation but doesn’t yet rise to the level of a “suspect.”

Madsen declined to elaborate but said 27-year-old Michael G. Allison is of interest in part because Steven Allison was last seen alive in his brother Michael’s home at 2332 W. College Ave.

Michael Allison has been less than cooperative and has resisted taking a lie-detector test, according to Madsen.

“He stood us up on two appointments,” the detective said.

Michael Allison couldn’t be reached for comment, but his 47-year-old brother, Thomas E. Allison, vouched for him in an interview this week.

“My brother Mike had nothing to do with it,” Thomas Allison said.

Thomas Allison said he was living with Michael when Steven made his final visit to the College Avenue home.

“I was the last one to sit and drink a beer with my brother (Steven),” Thomas Allison said.

He said he shared a six-pack that Steven brought with him on the night he was assaulted, but Michael Allison was asleep and knew nothing of the visit.

“My brother (Steven) left under his own free power, and he was not hurt when he left the house,” Thomas Allison said. “And my brother Mike was sound asleep and didn’t even know he was there. I’ll stick to that story to the end, and that’s the truth.”

Thomas Allison said he has no idea why anyone would want to hurt his brother Steven. But he said he found a vague, threatening and unsigned message while going through his deceased brother’s effects.

The message to Steven Allison was written on the back of a tavern pull-tab, Thomas Allison said.

Madsen said he’s still waiting for genetic test results that could exonerate or implicate the other “person of interest” in his investigation: 45-year-old Jimmie L. Yates.

Yates is the former boyfriend of Debbie Brown, who had been living with Allison at the time of his death.

According to search warrant documents used to seize various items of clothing and what appeared to be a blood-stained towel from Yates’ home, Brown told police she heard Yates threaten to assault or kill Allison and others when Yates came to her home in violation of a no-contact order.

A police report said Yates was arrested on April 2, 2005, on suspicion of residential burglary when he went to the home Brown shared with Allison in the 1400 block of West Grace. Allison said he had been asleep in the living room when Yates began yelling at him.

The police report stated that Allison told an officer his fear at the time registered 10 on a 10-point scale.

But Yates told The Spokesman-Review last July that he “had no idea” who assaulted Allison, whom he considered “a good guy.”

Madsen said DNA testing on clothing seized from Yates’ home was sent to a state crime lab on June 29 last year, and has taken a back seat to evidence that’s needed in pending court cases. But, he said, “I don’t think it’ll be too much longer.”

Ultimately, though, Madsen said, “What’ll eventually solve this case, I believe, is the right person coming forward.”

That could happen, he said, when someone gets arrested and needs to trade information about this case to get out of jail sooner in another case.

Anyone with information about Steven Allison’s death is asked to call (509) 242-TIPS.