Brian Coddington

Accusations that a 14-year-old boy molested several neighborhood children have torn apart a tidy Heritage Place cul-de-sac. Parents in six homes that ring a street once used freely as a neighborhood play area are struggling to cope with their anger, fear and constant suspicions. They worry there may be more victims. About a dozen children, including the accused boy, formerly bounced from dinner table to dinner table. The boy often baby-sat the other children in the neighborhood.

Larry Larson was lifted from a collapsed ditch in Rathdrum where he was hit by debris Tuesday. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

A 36-year-old Post Falls man faces fraud charges for allegedly renewing insurance policies while posing as a salesman for a Spokane Valley company after he had been fired. Prosecutors believe Todd H. DuBois pocketed nearly $1,400 in payments made for those policies, according to court records. He was being held Tuesday in the Kootenai County Jail on six counts of insurance fraud. Bail was set at $20,000.

1. Elsenbeck 2. Machacek

Ralph J. Reyes of Spirit Lake walks into a Kootenai County courtroom Friday afternoon. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend's child. In doing so, he avoided a possible death sentence. Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review

A 4-year-old boy says he found a greasy razor blade lodged in a chicken nugget his mother bought earlier this week at a Burger King fast-food restaurant. Nicholas Shiroma, a Coeur d'Alene preschooler, said he noticed the razor blade Monday when he dumped his chicken nuggets onto a tray while watching an afternoon cartoon show at home, said Donna Parich, the boy's mother.

Kootenai County deputies Lee Richardson, left, and Mike McFarland, right, with Post Falls Police Sgt. Scot Haug, second from left, and patrolman Bob Lindstrom. Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review

Grip, a 58-pound 3-year-old pit bull, is well-behaved and playful but is used to help train public employees in how to prevent and survive fierce dog attacks. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

Four people lost while hunting separately in North Idaho avoided injury this weekend despite freezing temperatures. At least two of the hunters weathered a snowstorm while spending a night in the woods. All four had been found by Sunday night. "It's not looking good already," Shoshone sheriff's Cpl. Mitch Alexander said Monday, three days after hunting season opened.

Animal control officer Glenn Weeks tries to lasso the dog. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

Latah County prosecutors charged a Moscow, Idaho, man Tuesday with murdering his infant daughter, accusing him of causing the fatal injuries by violently shaking the 3-1/2-month-old girl. David Pettit, a 24-year-old University of Idaho student, was being held in the Latah County Jail without bail on a first-degree murder charge.

Hayden Lake Fire Chief Wayne Syth works on the fireboat engine last year. Fire commissioners fired Syth on Tuesday. File/The Spokesman-Review

Four men forced their way into a Coeur d'Alene motel room over the weekend and beat a 34-year-old man with their fists and an ax handle, sending him to the hospital. The intruders punched Michael McClement more than a dozen times before slamming the fiberglass ax handle they found in the room into his right knee, according to a Coeur d'Alene police report.

Charlotte Dotson nodded her head approvingly as the judge spoke. Police, who found drugs in her car during a routine traffic stop, should not have searched the vehicle without probable cause. Even the fact that police had arrested a passenger no longer justified such a search, said 1st District Judge James Judd.

Hosack

Even the smallest peep in the night sends Donald Zeigler lurching from his restless slumber, gun in hand. Zeigler's wife, Barbara, refuses to leave the couple's daughters alone, not even while she goes to the back yard to take out the garbage.

One of three North Idaho College wrestlers involved in an altercation this week is being investigated for battery after breaking another man's arm and knocking him unconscious, police said. Police did not identify the athlete but said Wednesday the 25-year-old wrestler is the focus of an investigation into Tuesday's beating.

A Hayden Lake man was electrocuted Monday afternoon while working on a communication tower near St. Maries High School. Blake Lebo, 28, was flown to Kootenai Medical Center, where he died, said Benewah County Sheriff Joe Blackburn. Three other workers were not injured, he said. Lebo was hoisting equipment up a cellular phone tower when the cable tethering the load touched a distributor wire owned by Washington Water Power, said Dana Anderson, a company spokeswoman. The distribution wire, which supplies power from a substation to a transformer, carried 14.4 kilovolts, she said.

Five people arrested for allegedly burglarizing six businesses caused several thousand dollars in damage while stealing more than $5,000 in cash, according to sheriff's reports released Thursday. The group is accused of stealing money from at least three of the six Contractor's Square businesses early Wednesday, including $5,000 from Andy's Heating and Cooling. Several file cabinets and doors were pried open during the spree. A rug covering a floor safe also was pulled back in one of the businesses, but the safe was not opened, according to a deputy's report. David L. Cheyney, 27, of Coeur d'Alene; his sister, Sherri L. Cheyney, 25, of Fernwood, Idaho; and Cameron M. Wall, 21, of Coeur d'Alene, were being held Thursday in the Kootenai County Jail on burglary charges. Bail was set at $20,000 each. Patrick A. Wentzell, 18, and his brother, Michael B. Wentzell, 31, both of St. Maries, also face burglary charges and were being held in the Benewah County Jail. All five are suspected in a string of nearly two dozen burglaries that have plagued Coeur d'Alene businesses for the past several weeks. But none has been charged with committing those earlier burglaries.

A car plunged into Fernan Lake early Thursday, killing an unidentified man, in the second Kootenai County drowning accident in 10 days. Kootenai County sheriff's divers pulled the man from a tan 1990 Nissan Sentra that had gone off Fernan Lake Drive on a straight stretch of road.

A Moscow, Idaho, oil tanker driver who disregarded road construction signs and bulled his way through a line of stopped cars has been cited for reckless driving, the Idaho State Police said. Five people, including a 4-year-old girl, suffered minor injuries in the eight-vehicle pileup Wednesday afternoon on U.S. Highway 95 about seven miles south of Potlach, Idaho. Rhonda Alsterlund, 30; Amber Alsterlund, 4; and Megan Hansen, 17, all of Viola, Idaho, were taken to Gritman Medical Center in Moscow. Also taken to Gritman was Patrick Jeppesen of Spokane. Gretchen Oschsner-Kruse, 30, of Hayden Lake, Idaho, drove herself to the hospital. Only Hansen was held overnight, the ISP reported. Theodore C. Sharpe, the 33-year-old driver of the Sharpe Oil Corp. tanker; William F. Forsman, 47, of Lapwai, Idaho; and Kim M. Kaul, 27, of Sandpoint, were not injured. According to the ISP, Sharpe was traveling north down a hill when he encountered road construction. After disregarding construction signs, Sharpe was unable to stop the truck when he realized traffic was not moving in front of him. The truck, loaded with 800 gallons of gasoline and 1,700 gallons of diesel, hit Oschsner-Kruse's 1993 Mazda pickup and then slammed into Jeppesen's 1984 Lincoln. Still rolling, the tanker forced Hansen's 1991 Mazda Miata off the road, pinning it under the trailer's front axle, and slammed into a 1995 Dodge pickup driven by Forsman before coming to a stop. The impact forced the Dodge into Alsterlund's 1996 Geo Tracker, which hit Kaul's 1996 Jeep Cherokee. The Jeep then hit a 1989 Ford pickup owned by the Idaho Department of Transportation. That truck was unoccupied at the time. The accident closed the highway, Idaho's only north-south route, for more than an hour.

A 50-year-old Post Falls man was being held in the Kootenai County Jail on Wednesday, charged with molesting his girl friend's teenage daughter. Billy J. Bowen admitted to having sexual contact with the girl during a five-month period ending in May 1996, according to a detective's report. The 25 to 30 incidents were alleged to have occurred at the Post Falls home Bowen shared with the girl and her mother. The girl told detectives the abuse began when Bowen snuck into her bedroom twice during an October 1995 night. Bowen told the girl not to tell her mother about the abuse, according to the report.

Five people arrested early Wednesday after burglaries in Dalton Gardens may be behind a recent string of burglaries plaguing Coeur d'Alene businesses, authorities said. Officers cooperating in a joint effort between the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department and the Coeur d'Alene Police Department made the arrests beginning about 1:30 a.m., said sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger.

A 19-year-old Sandpoint woman told police she was gang-raped in a field by three men she met during a weekend drinking party in Coeur d'Alene. The woman told police the attack happened early Sunday in the back of a pickup truck off Ramsey Road.