One verdict already in on Fred Russell

So Fred Russell is sorry now.

And not only that – the poor baby is scared.

Well, boo hoo.

Excuse me for leaving my hankie in a drawer. Learning about poor Freddie’s emotional state makes me feel only contempt.

By now most everybody around here should be familiar with the ongoing saga of Fred Russell.

The former WSU student jumped bail and ran rather than face a vehicular homicide trial for the deaths of three students who died in a 2001 crash on the Moscow-Pullman highway.

Nabbed in Ireland four years after he fled, the 27-year-old fought his return to America by seeking political asylum.

What a load of bull. Giving Fred Russell political asylum would be like giving Donald Rumsfeld the Nobel Peace Prize.

But there was a diabolical logic to this legal scheme.

The odds of getting the Irish to grant extradition are usually on a par with your chances of breaking into Fort Knox. But a concerted effort from U.S. officials made it happen.

Or maybe the Irish just couldn’t stomach Russell’s malarkey anymore.

Whatever the reason, “this is the first successful extradition (from Ireland) in the last 19,” said Jim McDevitt, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington, in a newspaper story. “This has plowed some new ground, at least from that standpoint.”

Hooray for our side.

And so last week two federal lawmen hauled Russell back to Spokane from Dublin.

Our page one story told us that Mike Kline, the U.S. marshal for Eastern Washington, chatted with Russell during the 22-hour trip home.

“He’s sorry for what he did. That’s how he expressed it,” said Kline, who added that Russell was also scared.

“He doesn’t know what’s going to happen.”

The English language contains many words that can be used to describe this guy. But “sorry” and “scared” don’t cut it.

Any conversation about Russell should center more on terms like “gutless” or “craven.”

I hope I’m not the only one who noticed the ironic timing of Russell’s return.

His comeback coincides with this somber time of the year when we honor veterans for their sacrifice and bravery.

Russell was thinking only about his own hide when he took off on Oct. 23, 2001, a few days before his Whitman County trial was to begin.

Brandon Clements, 22. Stacy G. Morrow, 21. Ryan Sorensen, 21.

Those are the names of the three WSU students killed in the crash. Four others were injured, three of them severely.

Accident reports, a news story noted, said Russell was “driving an SUV about 90 mph and trying to pass other vehicles when it struck three cars the night of June 4, 2001.”

Tests showed Russell’s blood-alcohol level to be above the legal intoxication level.

This case should have been concluded long ago. Russell’s chicken-hearted run had to add to the anguish of parents and others who were grieving.

Besides seeing some closure, I’d love to know the whole story of how a young man put together a sophisticated plan to leave the country and avoid justice.

We do know that Russell got a ride to Canada with Bernadette Olson, a graduate student who was “at the time studying under Russell’s father, Greg Russell. The elder Russell is a former prosecutor who then was working as the head of WSU’s criminal justice program,” a story reported.

So bring on the trial. Let a courtroom be the place to finally decide Russell”s guilt or innocence.

But as far as I’m concerned, a verdict has already been rendered on this punk’s character.

Fred Russell is a coward.