John Craig

More than two decades after he beat his wife to death, pawned her wedding ring and buried her in the back yard of his South Hill home, Spokane resident Monte Emil Anderson admitted the crime Tuesday. In exchange, he was set free. A jury convicted Anderson after the home was sold in 1983 and a new owner found Joanne M. "Shelly" Anderson's skeleton in a suitcase buried in a compost pile.

Former Ferris High School student Robert S. Weathermon agreed Monday to remain in custody until a decision is made on whether to charge him with alleged death threats in connection with an attempted-murder charge against his friend, Jacob Carr. Weathermon, 15, who watched his mother die in a traffic accident last summer, was brought to Spokane County Juvenile Court for a hearing that never got started because of his agreement to remain in custody voluntarily.

A judge ruled Monday that there is probable cause to hold a 47-year-old Spokane man in custody until a jury can decide whether he should be placed under state control for the rest of his life as a sexually violent predator. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque appointed private attorney Tim Trageser to defend Richard D. Frye in the civil commitment trial.

At an age when most men are in their graves, 93-year-old Clifford L. Schackel was in court Friday for sentencing as a child molester. Two burly jail transport officers brought the defendant into court in a wheelchair. His swept-back hair was white; his jail jumpsuit, bright orange.

The Washington Supreme Court lit a dim candle Thursday in a room the U.S. Supreme Court darkened last summer when it partially overturned state criminal sentencing law. Trial courts cannot improvise procedures to impose new above-standard sentences on defendants whose old above-standard sentences were invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Washington's top court.

A Spokane County sex offender faces arraignment Tuesday on a charge that he committed voyeurism in the women's restroom of a restaurant – while he was awaiting trial on an identical charge. The defendant, 48-year-old Michael Burke Fleming, has a long criminal record for victimizing women since he was 21. He has been convicted of breaking into numerous women's homes and of raping a woman on one occasion.

A Spokane County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that 35-year-old Charles Sean Tillman is a sexually violent predator who must be confined or controlled for the rest of his life. The civil commitment order is similar to those that confine people in mental hospitals because they are dangerous to themselves or others. In effect, Tillman is to be locked up for crimes he may commit in the future.

A 13-year-old boy who took a loaded .38-caliber revolver to Mead Middle School in January pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. State law prohibits anyone younger than 18 from having a pistol.

A 65-year-old Spokane man was sentenced Friday to sex-offender treatment and six months in jail for raping and exploiting a girl for three years. Donald Earl Evans was to be released from jail because he had already served almost nine months while awaiting trial. He pleaded guilty in February to one count of third-degree child rape and three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, as charged.

A Spokane jury was unable to decide Thursday whether an 18-year-old was committing an assault or trying to avoid being assaulted when he ran over a dog with a car last July. Charles Price Dimit was charged with second-degree assault for allegedly trying to run over William Abbott and with first-degree animal cruelty for running over Abbott's dog, Tiffany, at a skate park near Fourth and Bernard.

A former Ferris High School student was formally charged Wednesday with attempting to murder an English teacher he had previously threatened. Jacob D. Carr, 14, was charged in Spokane County Juvenile Court with attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, theft of a firearm and second-degree illegal possession of a firearm.

A jury Tuesday acquitted a man who was accused of assaulting a Spokane County sheriff's deputy with a car. The jury took two hours at the end of a two-day trial to acquit Corey Dejuan Allen, 35, of one count of first-degree assault.

Court documents indicate a Ferris High School English teacher may owe her life to the presence of other adults when a student who planned to shoot her got within six feet on Thursday. A police statement filed in Spokane County Juvenile Court says 14-year-old Jacob Carr – who had been expelled for threatening the teacher – went to her classroom with a loaded .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol in his coat pocket

A Moses Lake woman was sentenced Friday to 21 months in prison for shooting a Ferry County man to death last August. Doris M. Grisham, 47, had been charged with second-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old Benjamin S. Brown, but in January she pleaded no contest to second-degree manslaughter.

A Spokane County sheriff's detective received an anonymous letter in March 2003 that said Edwin and Jannette Curfew were growing marijuana at their Nine Mile Falls home. The letter offered details and was accompanied by a map that eventually led officers to what indeed appeared to be an indoor marijuana-growing operation.

KXLY Broadcast Group settled a defamation lawsuit Monday that was brought by a man who was falsely accused of a crime during a call-in radio talk show. KXLY attorney Laurel Siddoway declined to say how much the settlement may cost the station, or whether a public apology will be broadcast.

A Spokane County jury broke legal ground Friday by authorizing above-standard punishment for child-murderer Robert L. Doney Jr. The jury found Doney, 29, was guilty of four aggravating factors when he murdered 2-year-old Victoria Ramon because he was angry at her mother.

A Spokane man with hopes of a college basketball scholarship and a coaching job was sentenced this week to six years in prison. Darian D'Marce Ervin, 25, accepted a plea bargain in January in which a first-degree murder charge was dismissed. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery and first-degree burglary and to attempted first-degree robbery.

For the first time since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Washington's criminal sentencing law is broken, a Spokane County Superior Court judge has devised a repair. Judge Jerome Leveque on Thursday allowed a jury to consider whether Robert L. Doney Jr.'s premeditated murder of 2-year-old Victoria Ramon involved aggravating circumstances warranting above-standard punishment.

A Cheney man whose drunken driving killed a young Airway Heights pizza deliveryman and college student last year said Wednesday that it should have been him who died. Relatives of the victim, Yevgeny "Eugene" Korotin, could have been forgiven if they had agreed.

A 20-year-old Spokane Valley man accused of killing his newborn son by head-butting the infant and gagging him with a sock tearfully admitted part of the abuse in a pretrial hearing Tuesday. James Vincent Adams took the witness stand in an unsuccessful effort to convince Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly that his earlier incriminating statements should be suppressed.