73-year-old killer sentenced to nearly 38 years
An elderly ex-sailor convicted of first-degree murder and assault for killing an unwelcome guest and shooting another man at a drunken party in his South Hill apartment last year was sentenced Friday to nearly 38 years in prison.
Norman Roberts used a term from his nautical past as he faced Spokane County Superior Court Judge Robert D. Austin.
“You treated me like a man. I appreciate that. I can walk the plank now.”
Roberts, 73, was found guilty by a jury on Jan. 16 of killing Kenneth G. Conklin Jr. and seriously wounding Thomas Darco. The verdict included enhanced five-year sentences on both counts for the use of a deadly weapon.
At Friday’s sentencing, prosecutor Dale Nagy asked Austin to impose a sentence of nearly 47 years, the high end of the sentencing range. Assistant Public Defender Anna Nordtvedt called that sentence academic, saying he “isn’t going to be around that long unless he really surprises us.” She asked for an exceptional sentence downward, given Roberts’ age and the fact he has no prior criminal record. Austin chose the mandatory minimums.
Conklin’s mother, Donna Vicars, of Medical Lake, spoke at the sentencing, saying the death of her son left her with an “empty heart.” She also said she felt sympathy for Roberts’ family, who didn’t attend the sentencing. Neither did his former drinking buddies from the night of the shooting.
Roberts was tried once before and the jury deadlocked. On the second try, the jury was given an option to return a lesser verdict. But jurors told attorneys a recorded jailhouse interview in which Roberts said he intended to kill Conklin persuaded them to return a verdict of first-degree murder.
The interview was conducted by Spokane police Detective Donald M. Giese shortly after the March 6, 2007, shootings. A drunken Roberts slurs his words in the video while admitting he regretted shooting at Conklin a third time. Roberts told Giese he continued to shoot because he disliked Conklin and wanted to “make sure he was dead.”
In the video, Roberts called Conklin a bully who hit his own girlfriend, took drugs and kicked the “little furry dog” – a Shih Tzu named Lola – that belonged to Darco and his wife, Tiffany Harrington Darco, his best friend’s daughter.
During the trial, he took the stand in his own defense, saying he lived alone and feared a younger assailant might overpower him ever since he’d been followed home a few years ago to his apartment at 2811 E. 30th Ave.
His best friend and landlord, Joseph Harrington, gave him a .22-caliber revolver after that incident, which he slept with under his pillow.
It was Harrington’s son-in-law, Darco, that Roberts shot in the stomach and seriously wounded on the night of the impromptu party. According to testimony, Harrington, his daughter, Darco’s mother and her boyfriend, Conklin, had been drinking for hours when they decided to go to Roberts’ place, wake him and continue partying.
When Conklin and Darco started to fight in his kitchen, yelling and butting chests, “it caused me to think, I’d better get the equalizer,” Roberts told the jury. He returned with his gun to the kitchen, where he shot Conklin and wounded Darco.
Roberts left school after the eighth grade, worked as a fisherman, spent eight years in the Navy and Navy Reserve in the 1950s, and worked for the Merchant Marine until the early 1980s. Forced to retire early for health reasons, he moved to Spokane in 1995.