Child Placed In Foster Care After Killing Year-Old Girl Found In House After Father Gunned Down, 2 Charged With Shooting

A Spokane toddler was placed in a temporary foster home Tuesday, hours after her drug-dealing father was gunned down.

The girl’s mother is in jail on a drug-trafficking charge, authorities said.

Meanwhile, a judge set bail at $100,000 apiece for two people charged with killing the child’s father, Vito J. Tombari.

Kenneth D. Gooch, 40, and Susan D. Boatright, 35, are charged with second-degree murder.

Police found the girl, who is about a year old, in Tombari’s Vinegar Flats apartment while investigating his death. Her mother, Marla Scott, has been in the Spokane County Jail since Jan. 4.

Among Tombari’s many brushes with the law is a conviction for second-degree assault in October 1994, when he threatened, clubbed and stabbed Scott. Prosecutors were forced to drop a kidnapping charge because Scott refused to testify against her boyfriend.

“I just want him home with me and my baby,” she told the judge, who sentenced Tombari to 10 months in prison.

Scott refused to speak with a reporter Tuesday.

A playpen and toys were visible through the window of Tombari’s apartment, 516 S. Cannon, on Tuesday.

Tombari, 40, died outside the apartment after first calling police to tell them he had been shot by Gooch.

Police said they haven’t turned up a motive for the killing.

Gooch scheduled interviews with reporters from The Spokesman-Review and at least two television stations Tuesday. He canceled those appointments after meeting with his attorney.

Jail officials said Boatright could not meet with reporters for “medical” reasons. She cried and shook violently during Tuesday’s appearance in Spokane County District Court.

Boatright has 11 convictions, mostly for drug use, police said. She is awaiting trial for a 1994 arrest for cocaine possession.

Gooch has been convicted 17 times in the last 10 years for various drug counts, burglaries, robberies, forgery and theft.

Tombari is a well-known name in Spokane, where Vito Tombari’s grandfather settled in 1912.

Many family members became bankers, Realtors and attorneys. One of Vito Tombari’s uncles built the Tombari Shopping Center on the North Side. Another owned a semi-professional baseball team.

Vito Tombari’s father, the late Dino Tombari, pleaded guilty to bookmaking in 1969. A brother, Gary Tombari, was convicted of kidnapping in 1982.

, DataTimes