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

In brief: Man accused of shooting neighbor in dispute

A Northport, Wash., man is charged with attempted murder and first-degree burglary with a firearm after allegedly shooting a neighbor in a dispute over a gate.

Jack Eberly, 54, is accused of breaking down a door and shooting Muriel Vermillion in the Cedar Creek area May 15, after the two quarreled over a gate, according to the Stevens County prosecutor’s office.

Vermillion told officers she asked Eberly to leave after he began calling her names. She went inside, but Eberly allegedly followed and began hitting the closed door.

Vermillion tried to call 911, but the phone line had been cut. She told officers she heard a gunshot before Eberly kicked in the door. The two struggled, and Vermillion struck Eberly in the leg and foot with the blunt end of a hatchet, the prosecutor’s office said.

Eberly left, and Vermillion realized she had been shot and went to another neighbor for help.

Eberly was arrested and is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Sara Leaming

Man rammed teens’ car during food drive

A man who drunkenly rammed a carful of Gonzaga Preparatory School students collecting for a food drive last year will spend the next six months in jail.

Phillip Stevens, 44, of Nine Mile Falls, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and drunken driving this week in Stevens County Superior Court, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Stevens was arrested in November after three teenagers came to his home looking for food donations.

“Stevens, apparently suspicious, followed them in his car,” according to a news release. He drove alongside them on Highway 291 and rammed them with his car before the students pulled into a parking lot and called 911.

Stevens’ blood alcohol level was 0.188, the prosecutor’s office said. The legal limit is 0.08.

Stevens told the arresting officer that he was “really angry,” the news release said.

Meghann M. Cuniff

Colfax

Store receipt leads to egging vandals

Vandals who egged a Colfax car dealership Wednesday morning left a note at the scene decrying “the ignorant use of fossil fuels” – a note written on the back of a Winco receipt for five dozen eggs.

Whitman County sheriff’s investigators visited the grocery store and reviewed video footage of the egg purchase, which enabled them to identify four suspects.

The four, all are 20 and 21, admitted they had taken part in the egging incident, the Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.

They could face charges of trespassing and malicious mischief and they’ve agreed to pay for cleanup costs and “write letters of apology to the dealership for their actions,” the release said.

The Sheriff’s Office noted that investigators worked “most of the day to ‘crack’ the case.”

Addy Hatch