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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Trial set for woman accused of killing elderly Bonner County woman in 2017

Daryl Ramey, the husband of Shirley Ramey, is photographed at his home last fall in Hope, Idaho. Shirley was shot and killed on the back porch in April 2017. A mug shot of the suspected killer, Judith Carpenter hangs in his home office. Carpenter will face trial for the killing in June. (Kathy Plonka / The Spokesman-Review)

A Coeur d’Alene woman accused of killing an elderly Bonner County woman in 2017 will face trial in June after she pleaded not guilty this week.

Police say Judith Carpenter, 57, shot Shirley Ramey, 79, at point-blank range at her home in Hope, Idaho, in April 2017. The case went unsolved for two years, until a federal database of guns and bullets used in crimes connected the killing with a gun seized from Carpenter in a road rage incident the day of the shooting.

Carpenter was arrested in August and her court hearings were delayed multiple times while attorneys awaited the results of a mental health evaluation. Investigators have not determined a motive for the killing and have not been able to interview Carpenter, according to Bonner County Sheriff’s Detective Phil Stella.

Prosecutors had not discussed a plea bargain with Carpenter’s attorneys as of last week.

Ramey’s killing was linked with the shooting death of George Andres, 73, at his home in Clark Fork, which occurred eight months later. That case remains unsolved, Stella said.