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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Karen Dorn Steele

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All Stories

News >  Spokane

Trial will determine Oakes’ heirs

It’s hardly a typical probate. In fact, it’s a web of lies, court documents say. The colorful saga of Kitty Oakes and Billy Tipton – the former stripper and the Spokane bandleader who lived as a man but was revealed at death to be a woman – will be the backdrop to a three-day Spokane County Superior Court bench trial starting Monday.
News >  Spokane

Comfort for crime victims

Not even a broken arm and nose could keep Annette Ingham from her courthouse job: giving comfort to the victims of violent crime. The victim-witness coordinator for the Spokane County prosecutor’s office tripped on a sidewalk while trick-or-treating with her childrens. Black and blue, her arm in a sling, she showed up in Superior Court the following Monday for the first day of the homicide by abuse trial of Jonathan Lytle in the death of his daughter, 4-year-old Summer Phelps.
News >  Spokane

Airway Heights search ruled illegal

A search of a man by two Airway Heights police officers was unconstitutional and a Spokane judge was correct in tossing out stolen property charges against him, an appeals court has ruled. The Washington Court of Appeals in Spokane said this week that Spokane County Superior Court Judge Ellen Kalama Clark was correct in dismissing second-degree possession of stolen property charges against Curtis N. Beito because of the illegal 2006 search.
News >  Spokane

Jury finds Lytle guilty

A Spokane jury found the father of 4-year-old Summer Phelps guilty of homicide by abuse for his role in the beating and torture of his daughter in a cramped Spokane apartment that became her death chamber. In its verdict Friday, the jury also found Jonathan Lytle, 30, guilty of aggravated circumstances – giving a green light to an exceptional sentence that could keep him in prison for most of his life. His wife, Adriana Lytle, has already pleaded guilty to homicide by abuse for Summer’s death and awaits sentencing.
News >  Spokane

Lytle trial goes to jury

After two weeks of harrowing testimony about the death of 4-year-old Summer Phelps, a Spokane jury must now decide whether Summer’s father played a central role in the escalating violence that killed her. The homicide by abuse trial of welder Jonathan Lytle went to the jury Thursday after a prosecutor and a defense lawyer presented two starkly different versions of who was most responsible for the child’s death.
News >  Spokane

Both sides rest in Lytle case

Jonathan Lytle’s lawyers rested their case Wednesday afternoon without calling any witnesses in his trial on charges of homicide by abuse in what experts have described as one of Spokane’s worst child abuse cases. A half-hour earlier, the trial judge denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, saying Lytle showed “an extreme indifference to human life” in the torture death of his 4-year-old daughter, Summer Phelps.
News >  Spokane

Summer the most bruised child she’s seen, doctor says

In her four years of treating abused children at Chicago’s inner-city Cook County Hospital, a local pediatrician told a Spokane jury Monday that she’d never seen a child as bruised as 4-year-old Summer Phelps and has never heard of a child being shocked with a dog bark collar or dunked underwater as punishment. “Would you classify her treatment as child abuse?” Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz asked Dr. Deborah J. Harper, of Spokane’s Riverfront Group Health.
News >  Spokane

Children find creative outlet

Now he can call himself a writer. Nine-year-old Justin Beaudry wrote and illustrated his first book, “That Halloween,” at Whitworth University’s annual Writing Rally on Saturday.
News >  Spokane

Expert says hair came from Summer’s head

Red hair found by police in the Spokane apartment where 4-year-old Summer Phelps died was mostly pulled from her head and matched her DNA, a forensic expert testified Thursday in her father’s trial. Jonathan Lytle is accused of homicide by abuse in the death of his daughter, who was beaten, bitten and shocked with a dog bark collar. She drowned in the family bathtub on March 10, 2007, after being forced to wash urine-soaked clothes for hours.
News >  Spokane

Jury shown items used in girl’s torture

One by one, the items used to torture 4-year-old Summer Phelps in the last months of her life were shown Wednesday to a Spokane County Superior Court jury. A black dog collar used to shock the child when she was too loud. A blue mop used to press her against a tall bathtub where she was forced to wash her urine-stained clothes and bedding. Black belts and kitchen utensils used to hit her.
News >  Spokane

Girl’s abuse unnoticed by neighbors, nurses

Although there were troubling clues, 4-year-old Summer Phelps’ severe abuse remained invisible to the nurses who visited her family and went unreported by the residents of the Spokane apartment building where she lived. That’s according to testimony Tuesday in the Spokane County Superior Court trial of Jonathan Lytle, Summer’s father, who is charged with homicide by abuse.
News >  Spokane

Medical staff detail Summer’s injuries

When Summer Phelps was brought to the emergency room on March 10, 2007, the treating physician thought the 4-year-old was a cancer patient because of her injuries, according to testimony Monday in the homicide-by-abuse trial of her father, Jonathan Lytle. Dr. Darrol C. Hval, an emergency room physician at Deaconess Medical Center, said the 45-pound child was covered from head to toe with purple bruises and large chunks of her long red hair were missing.
News >  Spokane

Lytle tape played at court hearing

In the last months of her life, 4-year-old Summer Phelps had no protectors. She was slapped, beaten with belts, shocked with a dog collar hung around her neck to keep her from screaming. She was forced for hours to wash her urine-soaked bedding in the bathroom where she slept.
News >  Spokane

Lawsuit claims officials failed to protect Summer Phelps

On the eve of a high-profile trial involving the torture death of 4-year-old Summer Phelps, the child’s biological mother has sued state officials for failing to protect her daughter. The lawsuit may later name Jonathan Lytle, Summer’s 30-year-old father, whose trial on charges of homicide by abuse starts Monday in Spokane County Superior Court. Adriana Lytle, Summer’s 24-year-old stepmother, has pleaded guilty to homicide by abuse and will be sentenced after her husband’s trial.
News >  Spokane

Decades later, rape victims still bear scars

The trauma of rape doesn’t have an expiration date. After she was sexually assaulted by Kevin Coe on a dark South Hill street in October 1980, Julie Harmia slept with Tuffy, a protective German shepherd, and never again got on the city bus she’d ridden home that night after her first day at a new job. Her marriage failed.
News >  Spokane

Lytle judge orders open court

Questioning of potential jurors for the homicide-by-abuse trial of Jonathan Lytle will take place in open court, a Spokane County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday. Lytle is charged in the death of his daughter, 4-year-old Summer Phelps, who died in a Spokane hospital on March 10, 2007. Medical personnel have called hers a case of “vicious child abuse” in court documents.
News >  Spokane

Man found guilty in drug-related killing

A Spokane man involved in the execution-style slaying of a drug dealer whose decomposed body was discovered in southern Spokane County in 2006 was found guilty Tuesday of first-degree felony murder and first-degree kidnapping. A Spokane County Superior Court jury took only three hours to deliberate in the trial of Robert Alan Brown before delivering its verdict before Superior Court Judge Sam Cozza.
News >  Spokane

Father didn’t kill Summer, attorneys say

Attorneys for Jonathan Lytle, accused of homicide by abuse in the death of his 4-year-old daughter, said he was not in the room the day the girl was repeatedly submerged in a bathtub as punishment and “did not dunk her.” Instead, Lytle’s court-appointed attorneys said in a trial brief filed Thursday that evidence will show Lytle’s wife, Adriana Lytle, “repeatedly dunked the little girl in the bathtub as part of her punishment for urinating in her clothes … and that such dunking in fact led to her death.”
News >  Spokane

Jury shuts door on Coe

Kevin Coe is a dangerous sexual predator who should be locked away indefinitely on an island in Puget Sound, a jury ruled Thursday. The verdict came quickly – jurors deliberated about six hours, starting Wednesday afternoon – ending a monthlong trial punctuated by hours of explicit testimony from women who said Coe raped and molested them.
News >  Spokane

Coe defense aims to thwart psychologist claim

Testimony in Kevin Coe’s civil commitment trial ended Tuesday with a defense lawyer angrily questioning the state’s expert psychologist about her objectivity in concluding that Coe has a mental abnormality that makes him likely to re-offend. “Is it true that all you did was consider everything negative regarding Mr. Coe in making your diagnosis and ignoring everything exculpatory or good?” attorney Tim Trageser asked Dr. Amy Phenix.
News >  Spokane

Expert witness testifies Coe not mentally ill

There’s no evidence that convicted rapist Kevin Coe has a mental abnormality, an expert for the defense told a Spokane County Superior Court jury Monday. Dr. Theodore Donaldson, an Oregon forensic psychologist, testified that Coe is interested in “kinky sex” – but there’s no evidence he’s a mentally ill or “paraphilic” rapist who can’t control his urges.
News >  Spokane

Coe’s sister testifies on his behalf

Kevin Coe’s younger sister told a Spokane jury Thursday she’s willing to help her 61-year-old brother move to Nevada and to pay for his care in a group home if he’s released after his civil commitment trial. Kathleen Coe said her brother likely will need special care because he has become deeply depressed and has “lost hope” after being detained for the past two years in the state’s Special Commitment Center, a high-security facility on McNeil Island for violent sexual predators.
News >  Spokane

Coe childhood friend testifies

Kevin Coe roamed the corridors of Browne’s Addition apartment buildings in the 1970s, trying doorknobs as he sought access to the homes of young women, his best friend from childhood testified Monday in Coe’s civil commitment trial. Coe told him about an incident in May 1971 when he gained access to an apartment during the night and tripped over a sleeping woman, who screamed, said Jay Williams, a Spokane Valley resident and former real estate colleague of Coe’s.
News >  Spokane

Experts to present DNA in Coe trial

A positive DNA sample from the woman whose South Hill rape sent Kevin Coe to prison for 25 years must be introduced by DNA experts and not by a psychologist who will testify for the state that Coe has a mental illness, a Spokane judge ruled Thursday in Coe’s civil commitment trial. Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor’s ruling was a victory for the defense, which had sought to bar Dr. Amy Phenix from referring to the DNA sample obtained after the October 1980 rape of Julie Harmia. The sample matches Coe’s DNA, but the defense wants to tell the jury about chain-of-custody problems with the old rape slide.