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Doug Clark: Public-minded mother deserves thanks

I’ve never met Kim Spain.

Don’t know anything about her or what sort of dynamics, family or otherwise, she might be going through.

What sketchy bit of information I have comes from news coverage and an “affidavit of facts” an editor sent me via email.

It’s enough for me to conclude, however, that this Spokane woman deserves a huge thank-you from the community. She did the right thing in the face of what had to be an emotionally difficult situation.

Late last week, this mother turned her 25-year-old son, Daniel G. Spain, over to authorities.

It happened, according to the court document, after she recognized sonny boy in a surveillance photo that had been released to TV news.

Police hoped the media exposure would help them catch the hoodie-wearing creep who stabbed a woman at random last month in downtown Spokane.

And if the chilling allegations that were made in court are true, we may owe this mother a lot more than a simple thank-you.

On Friday, prosecuting attorney Kyle Treece attributed Mom with telling police that becoming a serial killer was her son’s goal in life.

Our news story paraphrased the prosecutor as saying “Spain admitted following the woman for several blocks before attacking her in an act that was to be the first step toward that goal.”

The victim at first didn’t realize she’d been stabbed.

She would later describe a popping noise that came with the attack, but investigators figured what she heard was the 5-inch blade breaking off in the lower-left part of her back.

Surgeons removed the blade from what was considered a “life-threatening” wound.

In other words, it could’ve been a whole lot worse.

There’s an old, stale joke that starts off with the question, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

“Practice,” is the punch line. “Practice.”

Nobody turns into Ted Bundy overnight. Even becoming a monster takes practice.

So is Treece right about Daniel Spain?

It will be interesting to see how the case plays out, whether the man’s first-degree assault charge goes to trial, whether some mental impairment is involved or whether this will end in anticlimax with a plea.

What puts the Spain case in a different category is the random nature of the attack.

Most crimes come with understandable motives.

He took my drugs. He took my woman. He took my drugs and my woman.

And on and on.

Attacking a stranger out of the blue?

This is everybody’s nightmare – Stephen King territory.

The hairs stood up on my neck when I first read about what happened to the 38-year-old woman about an hour before midnight Jan. 25.

She was walking across a parking lot at Second and Post when a determined stalker “walked up behind her and stabbed her once in the back.”

What dark thoughts would hatch something so awful?

Daniel G. Spain was booked into Spokane County Jail; held on a $100,000 bond.

Mom turned him in. We should be grateful for that.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.

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