Thomas Clouse

Clay Starbuck, 48, was a jealous, controlling, obsessed, greedy and angry man who finally took out his frustrations against the woman with whom he shared two marriages and several children, a Spokane County deputy prosecutor told a Spokane jury today. But Starbuck’s defense attorney said the case against the Deer Park man, who’s charged with homicide in the death of his ex-wife, doesn’t add up, and questioned why investigators stopped short in testing all the evidence from the 2011 crime scene. The attorneys gave their closing arguments after a two-week trial. Jurors were sent home today without reaching a verdict.

A murderer pleaded guilty Friday for the machete-torture attack and killing of a Cheney man who was found in his burned car in 2011. Taylor J. Wolf, 22, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in connection with the April 13, 2011, slaying of 22-year-old Nicholas J. Thoreson, who was found in the trunk of his burning Ford Thunderbird on Forker Road.

A gun charge against an outlaw biker – considered so dangerous that Spokane police last year called in a SWAT team to apprehend him on an unrelated assault charge – was dropped Thursday when prosecutors and city officials declined to disclose in court why his arresting officer in an unrelated case is now on administrative leave. Jerry W. Clark, a 41-year-old convicted felon with reputed ties to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, had been facing up to 4 1/2 years in prison if convicted at his trial for unlawful possession of a firearm.

A Spokane man has been charged with child rape and molestation in a case that has prompted Gonzaga University officials to review on-campus security measures. Timothy D. Woodard, 48, a Gonzaga employee, is facing seven felony charges, including first-degree rape and first-degree child molestation, stemming from events that the victim said occurred in 1998 or 1999 when he was 10.

A 51-year-old man died Saturday when his motorcycle went off the track at the Spokane Motorcycle Raceway Park in Airway Heights.

Federal agents seized dozens of DVDs and other videos from a Gonzaga University faculty office and apartment as part of an ongoing child pornography investigation, newly unsealed documents show. The investigation, headed by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and local office of the FBI, is looking into dozens of online purchases and movie downloads made by someone using the credit card and mailing address of the Rev. Gary Uhlenkott, a music professor who was placed on administrative leave by the university following last month’s raid. No charges have been filed and Uhlenkott has not been arrested, but authorities say the investigation is continuing.

Federal agents seized dozens of DVDs and other videos from a Gonzaga University faculty office and apartment as part of an ongoing child pornography investigation, newly unsealed documents show.

Detectives used phone records Wednesday to make the case that Chanin Starbuck’s killer had intimate knowledge of the family. Deputy Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz had Detective Lyle Johnston narrate a display of all the text messages and phone calls from the phones of 48-year-old Clay Starbuck and his ex-wife, 42-year-old Chanin Starbuck, who was strangled in her Deer Park home.

The jury spent half the day Thursday hearing testimony and looking through autopsy photos from a prolonged attack that killed Chanin Starbuck. The key testimony came from Spokane County Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken, who painstakingly described every bruise, broken rib and internal injury that she said had to have been inflicted over a long period of time.

Details of secret lives spilled across a Spokane courtroom Wednesday as jurors in the murder trial of a Deer Park man heard intimate tales of suitors trying to set up dates with the victim – the ex-wife of the accused. For much of the afternoon, jurors listened to the monotone answers of high school teacher John Kenlein, who had refused to identify himself to investigators until one detective threatened to take surveillance video of him to the media.

Spokane County must pay Judge Annette Plese more than $15,000 for unused vacation after she left her District Court position when elected to Superior Court, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Court Judge Lonny Suko has ordered that the county pay Plese for the unused vacation time from 2009 when she ended her service at Spokane County District Court.

Clay D. Starbuck is either a calculated, cold-blooded killer who desecrated the body of his ex-wife or the victim of investigators who stopped looking for the real killer, according to opening arguments in his murder trial Thursday. Attorneys on both sides spoke during the long-awaited trial to determine the fate of Starbuck, 48, who faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if he’s convicted of aggravated first-degree murder and sexually violating human remains.

Spokane man wins new trial