Murderer sentenced to 45 years
Brian William Frawley, 25, was sentenced Thursday to a maximum 45 2/3 years in prison for murdering a young woman and leaving her body to be eaten by animals.
Before he goes to prison, though, Frawley must stand trial two more times in Spokane County for the alleged rape of two other women in separate incidents. The first of those trials is scheduled July 17.
Frawley also faces Yakima County charges of fourth-degree assault – a count that was reduced from third-degree rape – for allegedly forcing a girlfriend to have sex in May 2002, and failure to register as a sex offender.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly was unswayed Thursday by Frawley’s insistence that a jury wrongly convicted him earlier this month of first-degree murder in the January 2004 death of 20-year-old Spokane resident Margaret Cordova.
Frawley objected to angry comments Cordova’s relatives directed toward him at his sentencing, contending he couldn’t show remorse for a crime he didn’t commit. But genetic evidence found in Cordova’s body – still tied up with her own clothing – linked Frawley to the crime.
Three of Cordova’s aunts, her boyfriend and her mother, Vicki LaMere, made emotional pleas for a maximum sentence. Cordova’s 5-year-old son, Avery Doutre Jr., clung to LaMere’s leg while she told Rielly about the last time she saw her daughter alive.
LaMere said she was backing out of her driveway when Cordova yelled, “Mom,” and pointed to a duffel bag that LaMere had brought from Mexico.
“She mouthed to me, ‘Is this for me?’ ” LaMere said. “I nodded yes, and she gave me a thumbs-up and a smile. That was Jan. 6, 2004, and the last time I saw her.
“The next time I saw my little girl, she had no face.”
LaMere said she and others spent many hours searching for Cordova before her body was found about a month later in a wooded area near Freya Street and Fairview Road.
“I couldn’t sleep because I would hear her cry for me,” LaMere told Rielly. “I would think of the ugliest things happening to her and pray every minute that it wouldn’t be true.”
Before he knew police had DNA evidence tying him to the crime, Frawley claimed he had never met Cordova. When he found out, he changed his story to claim that he gave Cordova drugs in exchange for sex but didn’t murder her.
At trial, Deputy Prosecutor Andi Jakkola hammered Frawley with his conflicting stories. At his sentencing, Jakkola called for the maximum-standard sentence that Rielly imposed. Public Defender John Rodgers argued for a minimum-standard 34 1/4 years.
Rielly also granted Jakkola’s request to have the murder sentence run consecutively with a four-year sentence Frawley got in September when he pleaded guilty to seven lesser crimes, including failure to register as a sex offender.
A former girlfriend was the victim of several of the other crimes to which Frawley pleaded guilty: residential burglary, first-degree theft, three counts of trafficking in stolen property and attempting to elude police.
In one of his pending Spokane County trials, Frawley is charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree rape of a 25-year-old woman who had been walking in front of the Northwest Seed and Pet store at Sprague and Cook on April 18, 2004. The woman told police she accepted a ride from Frawley, and he tied her up and threatened to shoot her. He allegedly raped the woman twice and left her gagged and tied to a tree.
Frawley is charged with raping another woman in June 2004 after persuading her to accept a ride. Court documents say he picked up the woman near Second and Howard downtown and took her to a wooded area near Peaceful Valley, where he raped her twice at gunpoint.
The woman told police Frawley stole $2 from her before releasing her. She said he told her to hand over the money quickly if she didn’t want to die and that she was lucky he wasn’t doing to her what he had done to other women. Frawley is charged with two counts of first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree robbery in that case.