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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Benjamin Shors

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All Stories

News >  Spokane

Foster teen died of accidental overdose, report says

A Native American foster child died of an accidental overdose of prescription methadone, the Stevens County Coroner said on Wednesday. Robley "Bobby" Carr Jr., 15, died in December at his home near Valley, Wash. His foster father has a prescription for methadone for a back injury, but it could not be determined where Carr obtained the painkiller.
News >  Spokane

Bills seek to reunite families

OLYMPIA – For weeks at a time, the twin boys disappeared from Washington's child welfare system. Drug-addicted and hungry, they wandered the streets of Seattle, sleeping at drug houses, panhandling spare change and scavenging food.
News >  Spokane

Children’s mental health reforms OK’d

OLYMPIA – In the latest victory for mental health advocates, a House committee approved a bill Thursday to overhaul children's mental health services across the state. The bill allocates $27 million over the next two years to provide treatment to low-income children, as well as those in Washington's child welfare and juvenile justice systems. It has garnered the support of city and county governments, court administrators, and medical providers.
News >  Spokane

Hotel with past has conversion

The working girls on East Sprague knew him as a "cheap date." He came by the motel a couple days a month. Each time, Robert Lee Yates Jr. paid the $28.95 room bill in cash – until the spring of 2000, when a serial killer task force busted him for the deaths of 18 prostitutes, bringing infamy to the little motel and an uneasy calm to East Sprague.
News >  Spokane

Coming in from the cold

Three nights ago, a 33-year-old man named Leon McGann tried to find a safe place to sleep on the streets. It was not easy.
News >  Idaho

Highway 95 deaths down

As North Idaho's population boomed in recent years, a surprising trend has emerged on its roads: They appear to be safer. On U.S. Highway 95, which has long been considered one of the most dangerous roads in the state, traffic fatalities dropped by half last year. Since 1999, when a record 35 people died on the highway, the number of fatalities has steadily fallen and totaled just 11 deaths last year.
News >  Spokane

Newspaper sues city for Lynch report access

The Spokesman-Review sued the city of Spokane on Friday, alleging that it improperly refused to release details of an internal affairs report regarding Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch. Earlier this month, the city refused a public records request for the six-page report concerning Lynch because of "privacy concerns," according to documents filed Dec. 29.
News >  Spokane

Tribe, state reach gaming pact

The Spokane Tribe announced a tentative gambling compact with the state of Washington on Thursday that would be the cornerstone to an ambitious development in Airway Heights. "This proposed compact promises to benefit not only our tribe but the entire region as well, creating needed jobs and boosting the local economy," said Richard Sherwood, the tribe's chairman.
News >  Spokane

Twisp man, co-worker joining protest at Guantanamo Bay

Dana Visalli plans to start the new year just outside the walls of a detainment camp in Cuba, with a dozen or so other protesters. Visalli, a 58-year-old biological consultant from Twisp, Wash., will fly to Havana on Monday, via Mexico City, to protest the fifth anniversary of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Federal provisions prohibit Americans from most travel to Cuba.
News >  Spokane

Mental health care stabilizing

For years, Spokane County had been bedeviled by a simple but persistent problem: It sent too many psychiatric patients to the state hospital in Medical Lake. The bill to taxpayers sometimes topped $200,000 a month, as state officials penalized the county for failing to treat the psychiatric patients in less restrictive environs like supported living centers.
News >  Spokane

Indian youth’s death ends a troubled life

VALLEY, Wash. – Even in death, the fate of Robley "Bobby" Carr Jr., remains unclear. This afternoon, in a small memorial at an evangelical church near this Stevens County town, Bobby's friends and family will gather to remember a teenage foster child and his traumatic life.
News >  Spokane

Neighborly competition

Out on the wind-swept fields of Chief Garry Park, a motley neighborhood squad sketched out a rather convoluted and perhaps unnecessarily complicated play on the palms of their quickly numbing hands. Across the line, the opposing team – dressed in black jerseys and festooned with yellow plastic flags – grew restless and boisterous as the huddle dragged on and the scripted play underwent several revisions.
News >  Spokane

Aid recipients give back

They know what it's like to be on the other side – the hunger, the frustration, the anguish of having to explain to a child that there's just not enough money for the holidays. "I've been through the turkey line before," said Sonja Vernier, one of the volunteers who helped give away Thanksgiving dinners Tuesday at the Salvation Army Community Center. "Now I want to help out the people who have helped me."
News >  Spokane

State to review shredding of records

The state Children's Administration will review its practice of destroying thousands of foster care records after questions were raised by state legislators. The agency, which oversees the state's troubled child welfare system, will also consult with an advisory board of former foster children.
News >  Spokane

Child welfare reform urged

The Department of Social and Health Services should no longer oversee Washington's troubled child welfare system, according to a preliminary vote by a joint legislative task force. The vote could lead to the largest restructuring of state government in recent history and the creation of a new Cabinet-level agency with more accountability and flexibility in meeting the needs of thousands of children and families in Washington, according to supporters of the proposal.
News >  Spokane

Spokane wins housing grant

The federal government has awarded a $2 million grant to build two apartment buildings for people with chronic mental illness in Spokane, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Tuesday. The grant – the only one of its type received in the Northwest – will allow two Spokane agencies to build 19 one-bedroom apartments in the East Central neighborhood. Spokane Mental Health partnered with Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs on the grant application.
News >  Spokane

Cut is curtains for arts group

In a dance studio on East Sprague Avenue, Donna Douglass tapped "5-6-7-8" before plinking the opening notes of "Yankee Doodle Dandy." "Gee, you're making a big sound," Douglass said enthusiastically to her small choir. "Boy, I tell you, that was great."
News >  Spokane

More kids’ files destroyed

In the last two years, the state's Children's Administration has systematically destroyed more than 4,000 folders regarding its troubled child welfare system in Spokane – far more than had been previously acknowledged by top officials, according to documents released by the agency this month. The folders, which included both public and personal records of more than 1,700 Spokane children, as well as clues to the conduct of Washington's foster care system, likely represent only a fraction of the official documents destroyed statewide during the time period.
News >  Spokane

More working families need help

Newly released statistics show what hunger experts have long suspected: Those who need emergency food supplies in Spokane County are increasingly likely to have been recently employed. Nearly 80 percent of those who sought food had a high school diploma, and two-thirds of the households had an adult who had worked in the past year, according to a 20th-annual client survey released Thursday by Second Harvest Inland Northwest. Both figures are significant increases from past surveys, the nonprofit group said.
News >  Spokane

Job-training club marks 25 years

For nearly two decades, Tom Chandler has been part of an exclusive club. It charges no fees but offers plenty of benefits to the 46-year-old. "What brings me back every day is that it's safe and friendly," said Chandler, diagnosed with bipolar disorder. "We're not clients here. We're members."
News >  Spokane

New law targets chronic neglect

Washington's child welfare system was well-acquainted with the troubles plaguing the Hanley family. Over the course of 41/2 years, the state's Child Protective Services received a dozen referrals expressing concern about the welfare of the three children of Mathew T. and Barbara Hanley, who lived in Deer Park.
News >  Spokane

Mental health needs often unmet

Spokane County suffers from a shortage of mental health professionals, resulting in unmet health care for thousands of residents each week, according to an assessment released by the Spokane Regional Health District. Because of the shortage, between 7,000 and 18,000 people who might benefit from outpatient counseling are not able to receive it, the report said.
News >  Spokane

Election delays DeLeon trial

The murder trial for a former foster mother in Stevens County has been delayed until early next year in the prolonged aftermath of an election battle for the prosecutor's office. The trial of Carole DeLeon, 51, was originally set for this fall but was postponed this week because incumbent Prosecutor Jerry Wetle was trailing challenger Tim Rasmussen. The trial has been rescheduled for February.
News >  Spokane

Stuck between two worlds

The tiny leather moccasins – all 3 inches of them – sat on a table next to the 5-week-old girl. Trudie Nesbitt, who has been a foster mother for nearly two decades, rocked the little girl in her arms.
News >  Spokane

Half of inmates in U.S. mentally ill

More than half of all prison and jail inmates have a mental health problem, according to a report released by the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday. The report, issued by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, found that 64 percent of local jail inmates – a higher percentage than both state and federal prison populations – showed symptoms of a mental disorder.