John Craig

Stevens County Commissioner Allan Mack, a political consensus builder, died Friday. Mack, 61, succumbed to a kidney ailment.

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Thursday, March 14, 1996): A March 8 story stated incorrectly that convicted murderer Jackie Bence witnessed the suicide of her grandmother.

Jurors heard a tape-recorded statement Thursday in which Tony Sammons told police he can't remember the Sept. 27 double murder he and Scott Pierce are accused of committing. In the statement, Sammons, 25, said he remembered punching one of the two murdered orchard workers twice in the stomach at Pierce's house in Omak the night of the killings.

A 53-year-old Ephrata, Wash., man who molested two generations of boys was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in prison. Ferry County Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson said he'd never before seen anything like Michael Dean Taylor's record of abusing more than a dozen boys.

Opening testimony in the Anthony Sammons double-murder trial Monday dampened speculation that the Omak killings were racially motivated. Orchardist Paul Mannino said Sammons, 25, and co-defendant Scott Pierce, 20, were on good terms with victims Alejandro Torres Sanchez, 24, and Guillermo Herrera Roman, 21, when he saw them together the afternoon of the murder.

People who live along the Pend Oreille River always seem to be rounding up something. In July 1993, it was a herd of buffaloes that escaped from the Kalispel Indian Reservation. Saturday, it was a fleet of boat docks that sailed down the river to Box Canyon Dam, three miles north of Ione.

Stackhouse

Toby Stackhouse is expected to take the witness stand today to try to explain away the tape-recorded confession the jury heard Wednesday in his first-degree murder trial. The Spokane County Superior Court jury heard him state clearly and dispassionately how he stabbed 21-year-old prostitute Linda Guillen to death on Dec. 1, 1994. In his confession, Stackhouse, now 18, told police he killed Guillen as part of a plan to rob her.

Courthouse arson suspect Will Hill, 17, will be tried as an adult if the Lincoln County prosecutor's office gets its way. But that's a decision the county's Superior Court judge won't make. Hill's court-appointed attorney, Kelly Dougan, blackballed Judge Philip Borst on Tuesday on grounds that the judge is prejudiced against the young defendant.

Colville and Kettle Falls are getting a taste of public transportation. The Rural Resources social services agency has been providing free public bus service between the two cities three times a day since Jan. 1. Officials say 325 people took the bus in January, but ridership is climbing.

Stackhouse

Bam, bam, bam: A woman murdered on Dec. 1, another woman's house burglarized on Jan. 7 and a man murdered on Jan. 11. Already convicted in the Jan. 11 murder of Elk-area resident Steve Roscoe and facing trial for the other two crimes, Toby Stackhouse may seem like a perfect candidate for a mandatory life sentence without parole under Washington's new 'three strikes' law. But he isn't.

A Chewelah high school teacher was suspended after reporting she was raped by a former boyfriend who was once one of her students. The suspension resulted from allegations against the teacher that surfaced after the alleged rape on Dec. 7.

A Davenport woman has been charged with supplying alcohol to a 17-year-old boy on the night police say he set fire to the Lincoln County Courthouse. Carla Caskey, 34, is charged with two counts of supplying liquor to a minor on Dec. 21.

Two deputies in Pend Oreille County Superior Court Clerk Winnie Sundseth's office say Sundseth is punishing them for providing evidence against her in a criminal case. Deputy clerks Joan Green Clark and Leitia Evans each seek $1 million in a claim that could lead to a lawsuit against the county. They claim Sundseth illegally changed their working conditions and violated their civil rights by harassing them.

Jackie Bence will likely be sentenced to nearly 43 years for the torture death of a Spokane man. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Blame it on Jerry Garcia or county commissioners, but the Okanogan River Barter Faire may never be the same. Supporters of the popular counterculture encampment near Tonasket, Wash., say Okanogan County commissioners may be harder on Barter Faire than a horde of Garcia's band groupies were last year.

Six school districts and a hospital district in rural northeastern Washington have routine operating levies on the Feb. 6 election ballot. In Stevens County, the Kettle Falls School District is seeking a $390,000 levy for two years. The levy would cost property owners an estimated $1.67 per $1,000 of assessed value in 1997 and 1998. The Newport and Selkirk school districts have levy proposals in Pend Oreille County.

Authorities are waiting for toxicology tests to determine whether temperatures as low as 22 below zero or carbon monoxide poisoning killed two men stranded in their car overnight Wednesday. Donald E. Chambers, 39, of Ford, Wash., and Jack Jeffries, 46, of Deer Park, died after Chambers' car slid into a snow-filled ditch in southern Stevens County, near Deer Park. Chambers was dead when rescue workers arrived about 6 a.m. Thursday, and Jeffries died a few hours later at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

Pend Oreille Restaurant & Lounge owner Ray Jensen says he was just curious when he asked the Newport city attorney about local rules for nude dancing. Big mistake. Officials next door at City Hall haven't finished their answer, and Jensen has already lost one-fourth of his restaurant income.

Claudia McBride, wife of Newport school superintendent Rich McBride, is suspected of embezzling about $5,000 in county money. McBride has been suspended with pay from her $19,801-a-year part-time job as an alcohol- and drug-abuse specialist in the Pend Oreille County Mental Health Department.

Terry Husby, second from right, shows her latest project during a break at a Colville Piecemakers Quilt Guild meeting. Photo by John Craig/The Spokesman-Review

Stackhouse

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