Stackhouse To Testify In Murder Trial Today

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.

Stackhouse said he and co-defendant Jason Kukrall, 22, “were a little low on money” so Kukrall suggested they “roll a hooker.”

He said at first they made plans to kill the victim, but later in his confession Stackhouse contradicted himself and said he thought the plan was just to beat up and rob a prostitute.

His discussion with Kukrall about finding and killing a prostitute was “just joking,” Stackhouse told Spokane Police Detective Minde Connelly and Spokane County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Hansen.

Guillen “looked like she should have a little bit of money on her” when they saw her near a bingo hall on East Sprague, Stackhouse said. They picked her up and Kukrall drove to a side street near Playfair Race Track.

Stackhouse said they shared a beer and he tried unsuccessfully to get Guillen to perform oral sex for $8.

“I knew it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t,” he said.

Stackhouse said he got out of the car and when Guillen started to get out he punched her in the mouth. He said Kukrall hit her on the head a couple of times with a beer bottle and shattered the bottle.

Guillen fell to the ground, but got up and started running, he said.

“Jason ran out of the car and kicked her in the back and, when she was falling, I kicked her in the face,” he said. “That went on for like, I don’t know, a minute or two and then he goes over to the car and throws me a knife, and I look at him like, ‘What do you want me to do with it?”’

On the tape, Stackhouse adopted a conspiratorial whisper for Kukrall’s answer: “Stab her.”

Stackhouse said he stabbed Guillen once and looked up, feeling “really weird.” Then he said he resumed stabbing Guillen “because she wasn’t dead yet.

“Jason was telling me to kill her and I stabbed her multiple times in the throat. I don’t know if the knife was sharp enough to do a slash, I’m not sure.”

Earlier Wednesday, the jury saw photographs of a neat row of 19 parallel stab wounds that ran down Guillen’s throat and onto her chest like a railroad track.

Dr. George Lindholm, the forensic pathologist who examined the body, said the victim either was unconscious or being restrained. The wounds couldn’t have been so consistently horizontal if the victim were struggling, he said.

, DataTimes