John Craig

Eleven-year-old Spokane artist Desirae Rose Marion took it in stride Tuesday when Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed announced her work will be viewed by 3 million people this fall – about as many as typically visit the Louvre in a four-month period. Reed announced Tuesday that Desirae – who goes by Dessi – had won a statewide contest to design the cover of the voters' pamphlet for this November's general election. Her design was one of some 27,000 entries from students across the state.

Newport-area residents Mary Rosalee Gray, 60, and John Kingsley Pate, 70, are to be arraigned Thursday in Pend Oreille County Superior Court on charges they murdered Gray's husband and used a backhoe to bury his body. Deputy prosecutor Mike Carbone has charged Gray and Pate with first-degree murder and, as an alternative, second-degree murder. Charging documents say Robert Allen Gray, 70, was shot to death on or about May 21, but the documents give no motive.

Newport-area residents Mary Rosalee Gray, 60, and John Kingsley Pate, 70, are to be arraigned Thursday in Pend Oreille County Superior Court on charges they murdered Gray's husband and used a backhoe to bury his body. Deputy prosecutor Mike Carbone has charged Gray and Pate with first-degree murder and, as an alternative, second-degree murder. Charging documents say Robert Allen Gray, 70, was shot to death on or about May 21, but the documents give no motive.

Spokane Valley police say a weekend road-rage incident resulted in a brass-knuckle assault that left the victim with a cut lip and swollen mouth. The victim was nursing his injuries with a cold bottle of pop when officers interviewed him at a convenience store about 1:20 a.m. Saturday.

Thanks to the intervention of three men and the victim herself, police have a solid lead in the strong-armed robbery of a Japanese student at a Shadle-area bus stop. The victim – one of four Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute students waiting for a bus – was bruised and scraped when a purse snatcher jerked her onto the sidewalk across Wellesley Avenue from the Shadle Park Wal-Mart store.

An autopsy was planned today on a 70-year-old Pend Oreille County homicide victim whose wife and another man have been arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder. Sheriff Jerry Weeks said the victim, Robert Allen Gray, was believed to have been dead "a little over a week" when his body was found Wednesday morning in a wooded area near Sacheen Lake.

Max, the Spokane Valley cat who was set afire by teenagers almost three years ago, "didn't die in vain" thanks to a precedent-setting court decision, an attorney said Friday. A ruling by the Spokane branch of the Washington Court of Appeals recognizes legally what pet owners already knew, Bellingham attorney Adam Karp said: "The relationship we have with a pet is not the same as we have with a washing machine."

Max, the Spokane Valley cat who was set afire by teenagers almost three years ago, "didn't die in vain" thanks to a precedent-setting court decision, an attorney said Friday. A ruling by the Spokane branch of the Washington Court of Appeals recognizes legally what pet owners already knew, Bellingham attorney Adam Karp said: "The relationship we have with a pet is not the same as we have with a washing machine."

A third suspect in a violent home-invasion robbery of an elderly Spokane couple was booked into Spokane County Jail this week. Karen J. Applegate, 41, also known as Karen Sternberg, was arrested last month in Shawnee, Okla., a year after she and three others allegedly forced their way into Edward and Virginia Pringle's home on Five Mile Prairie and robbed the couple at gunpoint.

A court hearing is scheduled Friday for a woman accused of kidnapping and robbing another woman last October when the alleged victim stopped her car for a traffic light. A co-defendant already has pleaded guilty to forcing his way into Karen McAllister's car on Oct. 20 while McAllister was driving home from work.

A 20-year-old Spokane County man has been charged with raping a girl repeatedly between January 2003 and May 2005, when the girl was between 11 and 13 years old. Spokane police found Jonathon Wayne Bowles in the Garfield County Jail in Pomeroy, Wash., last month. He was serving a sentence for violating his probation in a conviction for taking indecent liberties with another girl in October 2004, when she was 13 and he was 18.

The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Washington's indeterminate sentencing law for sex offenders isn't subject to sentencing restrictions the U.S. Supreme Court imposed in 2004. Thursday's ruling resolves a split between the two Western Washington divisions of the state Court of Appeals.

A 16-year-old Spokane boy was charged Friday in juvenile court with one count of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault in a car crash May 6 that killed one of his friends and seriously injured another. The suspect, Roman S. Yermola, allegedly was racing another car downhill on Lincoln Street when he lost control of his Acura Legend and struck a pole and the vehicle rolled upside down into the intersection of Fourth Avenue.

A state proposal to dispose of undeveloped parkland along the Spokane River may end well for the 80 unhappy campers who turned out at a meeting Thursday night. All but one of them, based on a show of hands, opposed a state Parks and Recreation Commission staff recommendation that could lead to the auction of about 50 acres along the north bank of the river.

A Grant County Superior Court judge who was censured in 1996 for what he agreed was incompetence and partiality to his friends now faces new charges of judicial misconduct. The Washington Judicial Conduct Commission announced Wednesday that it has charged Judge Kenneth L. Jorgensen with violating judicial rules by browbeating a woman and denying her right to representation by an attorney.

A 9-year-old boy was rescued Tuesday from the Spokane River by a man who was pulled out of North Idaho's St. Joe River when he was about the same age. "I'm just glad he's alive, glad I was able to do what I did," said William A. Woodcox, 37.

A Spokane woman has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars from her Liberty Lake employer to get her breasts enlarged. Jerri Ann Cozza, 35, of 52 E. Everett Ave., was booked into jail Monday on suspicion of 27 counts of first-degree identity theft, 26 counts of forgery and three counts of second-degree theft.

A longtime director of Ferry County's emergency shelter for the homeless and domestic-violence victims pleaded guilty Friday to stealing the shelter's furniture and supplies. Lisa L. Phillips, 37, of Curlew, pleaded guilty in Superior Court to two counts of first-degree theft. In exchange, Prosecutor James von Sauer agreed to drop a third-degree theft charge and to recommend a one-month jail term when Phillips is sentenced June 10.

A second suspect was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the beating death of a man whose body was found in the basement of a Spokane Valley home. Kory Joseph Bruno, 17, was transferred from juvenile detention to the Spokane County Jail and was charged in District Court as an adult. He remained in jail Wednesday night in lieu of $500,000 bail.

A second teenager has been arrested in the beating death of a 19-year-old man whose body was found Thursday in the basement of a Spokane Valley home. Officials in the county prosecutor's office hadn't determined Tuesday whether to invoke a law that would allow 17-year-old Kory Joseph Bruno to be tried in adult court.