Kip Hill

Coeur d’Alene police are looking for two men they say robbed a convenience store at gunpoint early Monday, the latest in a string of armed robberies in Kootenai County over the past 10 days. The two men entered the Piggie’s Deli and Gas Market at 2001 E. Sherman Ave. just after 5 a.m. Monday, according to a news release from the Coeur d’Alene Police Department. They pointed handguns at a cashier and took off with an undisclosed amount of cash. Police continue to search for the suspects, described as two men about 5 foot 7 inches to 5 foot 8 inches tall, clothed in gray hooded sweatshirts with red bandanas covering their faces.

The wife of a jailed Spokane developer accused of fraud and theft doesn’t want jurors to learn that some of the allegedly stolen money was from the federal government’s controversial stimulus package. The request to keep the source of the money from being disclosed to jurors was one of many on the table during a series of hearings in federal court Monday for Kimberly Jeffreys, her husband, Greg Jeffreys, and his girlfriend Shannon Stiltner.

The fate of a 30-year-old Spokane man charged with killing a gang rival during a confrontation in December 2012 will be decided by a jury next week. Louis Hanson, 30, is accused in the slaying of Aaron Cummings, 27, at a home near North Central High School in Spokane in the early morning hours of Dec. 30. Prosecutors plan to argue Hanson killed Cummings in order to rise through the ranks of his own gang. If they convince a jury, Hanson could be convicted of aggravated first-degree murder and be eligible for the death penalty. Any murder conviction would imprison Hanson for life under the state’s “three strikes” law.

The Washington State Patrol continues to investigate the June death of a 34-year-old man who fought with Spokane County sheriff’s deputies until they subdued him with a chokehold outside of an Oz Fitness gym. In a report finalized by the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office in August, tests showed Will Berger died of hypoxic encephalopathy, or oxygen deprivation to the brain. The office ruled the death a homicide.

A 27-year-old Spokane woman is in jail facing child endangerment charges after police found her two sons, aged 1 and 6, in a motel room with a pipe used to smoke methamphetamine.

Prosecutors will retry a Spokane man deemed incompetent to stand trial in the 2009 stabbing death of his pregnant girlfriend. Robbie Bishop, 23, was in court Monday on the refiled charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter stemming from the death of Robin Anderson at a mobile home in central Spokane in August 2009.

Robbie Bishop, 23, faces a renewed effort from Spokane County prosecutors to try him for murder in the 2009 stabbing death of Robin Anderson. A judge had previously ruled Bishop incompetent to stand trial, but a new mental evaluation landed Bishop back in court Monday.

When does a Halloween scare go too far? A Kootenai County jury may decide just that after a Benton County woman filed a civil lawsuit against Silverwood Theme Park last week, alleging a costumed worker spooked her so badly in the parking lot in 2011 that she passed out and hit her head.

The next time the two teens facing murder charges in the death of a World War II veteran see the inside of a courtroom together might not be until March, a Spokane County judge ruled Friday. Kenan Adams-Kinard and Demetruis Glenn, both 16, have pleaded not guilty to murder charges entered after 88-year-old Delbert Belton died of injuries sustained in a beating outside the Eagles lodge in north Spokane in August. Adams-Kinard’s and Glenn’s fingerprints were found on Belton’s vehicle, according to court documents, and Adams-Kinard contends Belton stiffed the two on a deal for crack cocaine, which sparked the violence.

Gov. Jay Inslee toured Spokane on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to write a new transportation bill that would include money for the North Spokane Corridor.

A suspected garage burglar who was confronted by a West Central homeowner stabbed the man in the forehead with a deer antler, police said. Matthew Marcotte, 53, stabbed the homeowner during an altercation in an alley Thursday night, according to witnesses. The homeowner told police he had caught several prowlers in his backyard recently and saw Marcotte rummaging through an unattached garage nearby with a flashlight. When Marcotte emerged from the garage holding several apparently stolen items, the homeowner asked what he was doing.

About a dozen members of area religious groups stood before the shuttered downtown office of U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Tuesday morning, pushing through the mail slot pages of a petition demanding an end to the partial government shutdown signed by 30,000 people nationwide. “It’s disproportionately affecting poor people,” said the Rev. George Taylor of All-Saints Lutheran Church. “People on food stamps, people on the (Women, Infants and Children) program … a lot of people are suffering.”

Spokane County sheriff’s deputies arrested a 43-year-old robbery suspect Monday night, then used one officer’s own credit card to put up the man’s stranded mother at a nearby hotel. Deputies Joe Bodman, Jacob Spitzer and Nathan Bohanek arrested Harley Smerz and booked him into jail shortly after 11 p.m. Monday. Witnesses reported Smerz entered the Dollar Tree store at 9211 E. Montgomery Ave. around 8:30 p.m., where he asked for a bottle of water then grabbed cash from the register during the transaction. He then fled the scene in a Ford station wagon.

A spat over gang tattoos and ball caps could send a 21-year-old Spokane man to prison for the rest of his life. Cole M. Kendall, an ex-convict with a violent past, was one of several men arrested following an altercation at a house party held in the 4000 block of North Crestline Street in early August. According to investigators, two partygoers were kicked out by the hosts after comments were made about a gang-related tattoo.

A suspected garage burglar who was confronted by a West Central homeowner stabbed the man in the forehead with a deer antler, police said. Matthew Marcotte, 53, stabbed the homeowner during an altercation in an alley Thursday night, according to witnesses.

Parking will be free at all Spokane meters Monday in observation of the Columbus Day holiday. Trash pickup will occur as scheduled, as will City Council proceedings.

COLVILLE — A judge convicted an 11-year-old boy Friday of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for plotting to kill a girl in his class. “Simple anger – that is what fueled this,” Stevens County Superior Court Judge Allen Nielson said Friday afternoon as the boy stood with his head down and his arms folded behind his back.