November 22, 2009 in City

In brief: Tree cutter dies near Idaho pass

From Staff And Wire Reports The Spokesman-Review

A Kingston, Idaho, man was killed when a tree he was felling broke and hit him around noon on Saturday.

Sonny Von Scherrer, 34, was cutting wood in the forest near Fourth of July Pass when the accident occurred, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office reported. Friends of Scherrer’s told deputies that they had been cutting trees about three miles from Interstate 90 off of Forest Service Road 614.

Man gets 31 years in stabbing death

SEATTLE – A man who stabbed his girlfriend to death as they rode in a car on Interstate 5 in Seattle has been sentenced to 31 years in prison.

Christel David Murphy, 43, of Kent, pleaded guilty in September to the first-degree murder of Jane Kariuki and was sentenced Friday in King County Superior Court.

The couple had been arguing Oct. 16, 2008. He was in the back seat and she was in the front passenger seat when he put her in a neck hold and stabbed her 31 times in the neck, face and chest.

Murphy had a history of domestic violence, including assaulting Kariuki.