COLVILLE – Deer Park-area resident Carole Ann DeLeon pleaded innocent Tuesday to a second-degree murder charge in the death of her 7-year-old adopted son. She is accused of depriving Tyler J. DeLeon of food and water until he died of dehydration in January 2005.
No tenants were injured Friday afternoon when fire heavily damaged their eight-unit apartment building in north Spokane, but a firefighter was taken to Holy Family Hospital for treatment of what Assistant Spokane Fire Marshal Kris Eastman described as "heat-related concerns." More than 40 firefighters braved heat well in excess of the ambient 100-degree temperature to control the two-alarm fire at 6901 N. Wiscomb St.
Emergency workers and volunteers labored for 9 1/2 hours under harrowing conditions to remove the body of a workman who drowned Tuesday at the bottom of a narrow, 50-foot-tall irrigation tube in an Okanogan County reservoir. "It's just horrible down there," Sheriff Frank Rogers said of the siphon tube in which 49-year-old Okanogan, Wash., resident Lester L. Woda was trapped underwater.
A woman who operates a cat shelter in her north Spokane duplex bowed Tuesday to an ultimatum from Spokane County's shelter professionals. Shallona Houghton agreed to remove 12 kittens and four adult cats from her home at 307 E. Hawthorne Road after county animal-control officials threatened to charge her with misdemeanor operation of a kennel without a license.
COLVILLE — Stevens County cattle owners and the county government say in a lawsuit that a decision to eliminate most cattle grazing on the Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge was both improper and imprudent. Grass grazing by cattle reduces fire danger and promotes the growth of the brushy plants preferred by deer, county officials contend in the lawsuit they filed earlier this summer in U.S. District Court in Spokane.
About 60 Army reservists from North Idaho and Spokane were assured Saturday that their deployment to Iraq on Monday represents the "bedrock" of the American republic. "This is not a group of people who have been picked up off the street and sent off to war," Maj. Gen. Lawrence Johnson told the citizen-soldiers and families assembled at the McCarter Army Reserve Center in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
A Spokane County woman faces a possible jail sentence for allegedly leaving her teenage niece and nephew in the care of a registered sex offender. Under a seldom-used law enacted in 2002, it is a misdemeanor to leave children in the care of sex offenders. It makes no difference what level the sex offender is.
A Ferry County sheriff's detective who is under investigation by the FBI resigned Friday to avoid being fired. Sheriff Pete Warner had given Detective Carroll Sharp Jr. until Friday to submit his resignation. Warner said Sharp gave his notice verbally and promised a letter by Tuesday.
One of the wettest Junes on record has now dried out, causing a bit of nail-biting for firefighters on this fireworks-filled weekend. The fire danger officially increased from moderate to high Thursday in Washington's Spokane, Lincoln, Okanogan and southern Stevens counties, and from low to moderate in Pend Oreille County and across most of North Idaho. The fire danger remained low in Ferry County and moderate in central and northern Stevens County. Portions of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest continue to be at low risk for fire, but the heat is ratcheting up the risk each day.
Spokane County District Court Judge Richard White set a $1 million bail Thursday for a man accused of a vicious and prolonged attack on his pregnant girlfriend. Erik Duane Mahoney, 29, remained in the county jail Thursday night on suspicion of first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping and criminal harassment. He faces a number of unrelated charges as well, including drug possession and attempting to elude police.
Two women are accused of beating a man to try to keep him from testifying in a downtown Spokane homicide case. Marcie Jo Michael, 34, and Lisa Ann "Pebbles" Michael, 38, were booked into jail Wednesday on suspicion of witness intimidation and remained there Thursday in lieu of $500,000 bail each.
The building that houses county and city law enforcement offices was locked down for about an hour Wednesday when a private security screener suffered respiratory problems after inhaling a powdery substance from a vial he examined. Investigators weren't able to identify the substance because the security guard returned the vial to its owner, who left the Spokane County Public Safety Building before the screener became ill.
A Spokane County jury properly convicted a woman who broke into another woman's home in a frenzy of unrequited love, according to a newly released Washington Court of Appeals ruling. The Spokane branch of the appellate court said the jury was entitled to conclude that 43-year-old Tarina Louise Cauvel's claim to be on a mission from God and other irrational behavior didn't prove she was mentally incapacitated.
A man accused of manhandling an assistant manager and robbing Rocky Rococo Pizza and Pasta during the weekend was an employee, officials said Monday. Juan A. Temido, also known as Stanley A. Perez, allegedly hid in the restaurant at 520 W. Main and took more than $10,000 from the office about 10:15 p.m. Saturday. Police say he threw the money into the Spokane River minutes later when they caught him.
Steven Allison didn't want to tell police who had beaten him, and he died before he could change his mind. Now almost a year later, Spokane police are still looking for someone to tell them what happened to the 44-year-old Spokane resident. They're not optimistic.
Ferry County's only sheriff's detective has been told he must resign by the end of the month to avoid dismissal. Detective Carroll Sharp Jr. has been on paid administrative leave since Feb. 28 while the FBI has investigated allegations about his personal associations with several troubled boys.
Less than two weeks after two men allegedly assaulted and robbed a Japanese exchange student at a bus stop last month, they beat a teenage girl and tied her with duct tape, according to court documents. Charging documents say Charles H. Garland, 19, and Bobby S. Galloway, 18, kicked and punched a 16-year-old girl after she was attacked by a 17-year-old girl at an underage drinking party.
Thomas Kinkade, the self-styled "painter of light," added a shovel to his toolkit when he came to Coeur d'Alene on Saturday to talk about lighting up five luxury living rooms. Kinkade joined architect Rann Haight and developers Roger Stewart and Steve Torres in breaking ground for a development intended to translate five of Kinkade's manor house paintings into the real thing.
Conventional wisdom says that even a lawyer, not to mention a layman who drives around with a meth lab, is foolish to represent himself in court. Not David Lloyd Meckelson, though. Lately, he's doing well with or without lawyers.
Conventional wisdom says that even a lawyer, not to mention a layman who drives around with a meth lab, is foolish to represent himself in court. Not David Lloyd Meckelson, though. Lately, he's doing well with or without lawyers.
A man who has been on the Washington State Patrol's "most wanted" list for two years for allegedly assaulting a trooper faces arraignment next Tuesday in Spokane County Superior Court. Federal marshals recently arrested Dejuan Mario Jones, 23, in St. Louis and brought him back to Spokane. Jones remained in the Spokane County Jail Wednesday in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Spokane police officers Zachary Dahle, Gordon Ennis and Jaime Pavlischak knew Tuesday's 5 p.m. roll call was going to be unusual when their relatives showed up with cameras. Acting Chief Jim Nicks used the daily start-of-shift briefing to confer the department's Lifesaving Award on the officer who rescued several people from a burning building and officers who pulled a suicidal man out of the Spokane River.
An autopsy was planned today in the unexplained death Sunday night of a Spokane County Jail inmate who had been refusing food and medicine. Sheriff's Sgt. Dave Reagan said Gerard C. Leake, 52, was found dead in his cell about 10:30 p.m. Detectives from the Major Crimes Unit were investigating, but there was no obvious cause of death, Reagan said.
A Spokane man, fed up with neighborhood vandalism, alledgedly took matters into his own hands when he caught some teenagers tampering with a newspaper delivery box. Dannie Joe Roske is accused of pulling a gun on the alleged vandals, and now he could be looking at second-degree assault charges.
A 64-year-old woman in a wheelchair, on oxygen, faces more than five years in prison for a methamphetamine-related conviction this week in Spokane County Superior Court. Joyce Darlene Biby also faces a yet-unscheduled trial in Pend Oreille County Superior Court on charges that she manufactured methamphetamine and that she possessed the drug with intent to deliver it while awaiting her Spokane County trial.
