Brian Coddington

Joshua Workman, who turned 2 on Friday, wandered away from his Twim Lakes home Thursday evening but was saved by Prince, the family dog. Searchers found the toddler and the 5-month-old Great Pyrenees curled up together under a tree. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Roger Dunham, who lives at Hachney Airpark, was shot during an argument Friday at the airfield near Athol, Idaho. File/The Spokesman-Review

Police are investigating the attempted theft of a teacher's wallet from her Ramsey Elementary classroom by a stranger during lunch this week. No children were in the classroom when a teacher walked in on the woman, who escaped before administrators could confront her about the incident.

A safe taken from a car dealership - the third safe stolen or broken into here in nine days - was recovered Thursday by police in a wooded area. Several other businesses have reported file cabinets being broken into during recent burglaries, apparently by thieves searching for money, police said. "There's no way of knowing at this point in time if they're connected," said police Capt. Carl Bergh. However, he called the high number of those cases "unusual." The safe stolen from Robideaux Motors apparently had been emptied before detectives retrieved it Thursday. Another safe taken from a doctor's office last week has not been recovered. A safe in the third burglary was cut open, but not taken. Police have no suspects, but said the same person or group could be behind the string of safe thefts because of the number and relatively short time period. "That's in and of itself an indication that possibly it's the same person," Bergh said. Following the most recent burglary, employees at Robideaux Motors on Sherman Avenue discovered pry marks around four doors when they got to work Wednesday morning. Desks in two offices had been rifled. Imprints in the showroom carpet marked the spot where the safe had been the night before. A set of golf clubs in one of the offices was not disturbed. Lost with the safe were an unknown number of financial documents, according to a Coeur d'Alene police report. Dealer license plates also were swiped from a desk drawer. Two other items stolen from the business were not disclosed by police. On Sept. 12, Duncan's Nursery on Kathleen Avenue was ransacked and the safe overturned and cut open. An unknown amount of cash was taken from a money bag kept in the safe. A white cockatoo, a bird stand, and food for the bird also were among the items taken. Early last week, thieves left the dial behind but stole a safe from a Coeur d'Alene doctor's office. Police investigated a similar run of safe burglaries last year. At least five Kootenai County businesses had fallen victim by mid-December during that string, losing more than $10,000.

When two dozen constitutionalists caused a commotion recently while a man stood trial for driving without a license, sheriff's deputies responded with patience instead of force. Shoshone County deputies listened politely while right-wing supporters of Joseph Stevens' recited excerpts from the Constitution. Deputies kept their cool when protesters made sheep and cattle noises at the jury.

A 35-year-old Post Falls man made his first appearance in court Wednesday to answer charges that he raped two North Idaho College students in separate incidents earlier this year. Kelly J. Wang, also an NIC student, is accused of forcing a 40-year-old woman to have sex with him in late February or early March. A 26-year-old woman told sheriff's deputies Wang raped her in April.

A Bayview man turned himself in to authorities early Tuesday and admitted ramming a pickup into a car carrying his children and previously threatening their mother with a shotgun, deputies said. David C. Bass, 27, faces charges of aggravated assault and domestic battery. He was being held Tuesday in the Kootenai County Jail in lieu of bonds totaling $30,000. Bass reportedly backed his Ford pickup into girlfriend Mindy Bailey's Dodge Colt when she confronted him Monday evening about seeing another woman, according to a sheriff's report. Their four children, who range in age from 6 to 9, were in Bailey's car when the truck hit the passenger-side door.

A man shot in the lower back after making child-molestation allegations against his attacker two years ago has filed a lawsuit against the Coeur d'Alene man convicted of pulling the trigger. Michael Gunderson, 35, is seeking unspecified damages for pain and suffering, according to a lawsuit filed last week in 1st District Court. Gunderson also is asking for punitive damages and reimbursement of $8,020 in medical bills, saying that Jeffrey R. Strouse's "negligent acts" caused the Sept. 9, 1995, shooting.

A 1st District Court judge sentenced a Post Falls man to serve up to life in prison Monday, saying he believed the man who molested four young children teetered on being a pedophile. Judge Gary Haman's decision touched off a loud cheer of, "Yes! Yes!" from the dozen or so family members and friends of the victims while Michael A. Asbury, 48, sat silently sobbing behind the defendants table. "This is a crime that's probably as repugnant a crime as there is," said Haman, who ordered that Asbury serve 15 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Stephen A. Cherry's aunt described her nephew's life as torn by abuse and tragedy as testimony concluded Friday in the Post Falls man's sentencing hearing. His father, Lem Cherry, became violent while drinking, often making Stephen Cherry the target of his abuse, Rose Blessing said.

Crews will begin clearing a rockslide that covered Idaho's only north-south roadway as soon as rocks stop falling onto U.S. Highway 95, Idaho Transportation Department officials said Friday. About 25,000 cubic yards of debris covered the highway by 7:45 p.m. Thursday, 14 miles north of the Salmon River crossing. The slide was about 350 yards wide and 30 feet deep. "Once it stabilizes it will take them between four and eight hours to open one lane of traffic," said Rick Poore, transportation department spokesman. "It's just a guess as to when the rocks will stop falling. They're still falling."

Sheriff's deputies searched a Twin Lakes house early Friday looking for marijuana plants and a man who hit a 60-year-old woman in the head with a baseball bat. They found neither during the 5 a.m. raid and still are searching for two brothers who are suspected of growing the marijuana and attacking the woman, said Kootenai County sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger.

Stephen Cherry talks with his counsel Thursday during the first of two days in his sentencing hearing. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

Despite insistence by Diane Huber's attorney that she was entrapped, a judge on Wednesday ordered the Pinehurst, Idaho, woman to stand trial in an alleged murder-for-hire plot. Magistrate Robert Burton found there was "substantial evidence" that Huber, 41, paid an undercover police officer to kill the mother of her granddaughter. Burton then ordered Huber held in the Kootenai County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

A Pinehurst woman paid an undercover police officer to arrange for her son's former girlfriend to overdose on drugs, according to testimony in a court hearing Tuesday. The alleged plot against Tobi Beacham-Place of San Diego never was carried out. Defendant Diane Huber was arrested after paying special agent David Denbleyker of the state Criminal Investigations Bureau $5,000 and signing over the registration to her pickup to carry out the murder, the officer said.

Thomas Lane's life has taken him from the drug-infested ports of Panama to Silver Mountain Ski Resort's snow-capped peaks. News of the journey - including time spent in federal prison for drug smuggling and money laundering - is now tarnishing a Kellogg ski development.

A Sagle man slammed his car into a house, smashed a mailbox and clobbered trees in two Coeur d'Alene neighborhoods during a drunken driving spree early Tuesday that landed him in jail, police reports said. Jeffrey T. Ward, 20, was arrested on four charges, including drunken driving and battery, a jail deputy said. Accident reports show Ward's blood alcohol level was 0.13 percent when he was arrested.

A Coeur d'Alene man on parole for an aggravated drunken driving conviction was arraigned Monday on charges that he repeatedly raped the 15-year-old daughter of friends he had been staying with. Robert A. Thomas, 32, also faces charges of lewd conduct with a minor for allegedly fondling the girl's 14-year-old friend and violating the conditions of his parole.

A 15-year-old Sandpoint runaway shot himself in the foot Wednesday with a shotgun that is part of a cache of guns stolen recently from his parents house. The youth will be arrested when he is released from the hospital, police said. The teenager, whose name was not released, underwent surgery at Kootenai Medical Center to repair the wound to his right foot, according to a Coeur d'Alene police report. He remained hospitalized Thursday, said Lt. Don Jiran.

A man who admitted he exposed himself to a girl has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. First District Court Judge James Judd ordered the prison term Thursday despite a request from Timothy Krahmer's attorney that his client be given sex offender treatment. Deputy Public Defender Lynn Nelson also argued against a fixed sentence. "He would like to find out why Timothy Krahmer does the things Timothy Krahmer does," Nelson said.

A Pinehurst hunter whose body was found two months ago in the woods north of Enaville died of hypothermia, according to autopsy results released Wednesday. The autopsy showed George Saunders, 54, had four broken ribs but no life-threatening injuries when searchers found his body in thick brush at the bottom of the Coeur d'Alene River drainage on June 7, said Shoshone County Sheriff Dan Schierman.

Authorities arrested a Pinehurst, Idaho, woman Monday, saying she paid an undercover officer to carry out a murder-for-hire plot against a relative. Diane Huber, 41, was being held in the Kootenai County Jail on a charge of solicitation to commit murder. Bond was set at $500,000.

A 17-month-old girl drowned in Lake Coeur d'Alene after straying from her parents Monday morning at Powderhorn Bay, becoming the third person to die this month in North Idaho waters. The girl's father found her in a couple of feet of water near the family's property on the east side of the bay, said Sgt. Dan Soumas. Paramedics resuscitated the girl, but she died later at a Spokane hospital.

A 39-year-old Coeur d'Alene woman was charged Thursday with aggravated assault after she allegedly pointed a handgun at a teenage girl and her friends. The 16-year-old girl told police she was driving south on 16th Street just before midnight Wednesday when a woman in a short black tank top and blue jeans walked in front of her car. The woman pointed a shiny handgun at the girl when she stopped the car, yelled profanities at her and walked into a duplex in the 1100 block of 16th Street, according to a police report.