Man Recalls Horror Of Finding Wife’s Body Husband Of Moses Lake Shooting Victim Testifies In Triple-Murder Trial

Steve Caires was supposed to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary this month. Instead, he was in court, describing the horror of discovering his wife’s body in a Moses Lake classroom.

Caires was assistant principal at Frontier Junior High School on Feb. 2, 1996, when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his afternoon algebra class.

Loukaitis killed two students and teacher Leona Caires. The bullets struck her as she stood at the chalkboard, working on a math assignment.

Testifying Thursday at the triple-murder trial, Steve Caires said he was on the phone in his office when a student burst in and told him about sounds from the classroom, “like firecrackers or gunshots. .. I got up and ran down the hall.”

By the time he reached the door his wife was dead. As Caires stepped inside, he smelled gunpowder, saw shell casings on the floor.

“I looked down and I saw my wife. She was laying on the floor on her back. I saw the cartridges on the floor and knew they were from a high-powered rifle.”

Caires now lives in Palouse, Wash., where he is the principal of the town’s lone public school.

Standing in the marbled hallway of the King County Courthouse on Thursday, Caires took pictures of his wife out of his wallet - one from when she was in high school, another taken just before her death.

His eyes misted as he looked at the pictures and spoke of his need to testify at the murder trial.

“I wanted to support her memory, so she will not have died in vain,” he said.

He looked calm on the witness stand, but Caires said “inside, my stomach was jumping up and down.”

Loukaitis is charged with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder, 16 counts of first-degree kidnapping, and one count each of attempted first-degree murder and second-degree assault.

He is being tried as an adult. If convicted, Loukaitis, 16, would spend the rest of his life in prison. Loukaitis, who has confessed to the shootings, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

If found incapable of being criminally responsible for the crimes, Loukaitis would remain in prison and in treatment until a judge determines he is no longer dangerous.

Besides Caires, classmates Manuel Vela and Arnold Fritz, both 14, died. Natalie Hintz, now 15, was critically wounded.

Other witnesses called during the fourth day of testimony described a kid carrying out a carefully executed plan.

Misty Starky, 16, said after killing three people Loukaitis made small talk with her while pointing her to a chair at the back of the room with a rifle. He asked where she was from, and she answered, “near Dallas.”

“Dallas is a very pretty city,” Loukaitis said.

After the killings, Starky said Loukaitis was cool and matter-of-fact, “like nothing had happened.”

Marc Leblanc, an air-conditioning installer who saw Loukaitis walking to school just before the shootings, said the boy had a determined look.

“He looked like he knew what he was going to do. You knew this was a kid who had something on his mind.”

Sidney Deane, an assistant principal at Moses Lake High School, said he saw Loukaitis walk by his window on his way into Classroom No. 15 moments before the rampage.

“I said to the secretaries, ‘I think I just saw a tin soldier,”’ because Loukaitis strutted by, arms pinned to his sides and his legs stiff.

Deane said he considered stopping Loukaitis and asking him why he wasn’t in class. But because the school day was nearly over, he didn’t.

Garrett Lybbert, 15, described Loukaitis quickly shooting three people when he barreled into the classroom packing three guns and 78 rounds of ammunition. Loukaitis methodically moved the survivors to the back of the classroom and took a hostage to protect himself from police snipers he was sure would be aiming through the windows, Lybbert said.

Defense attorney Michael Frost told the jury earlier that Loukaitis was in another world during the attack, unaware that what he was doing was wrong.

But Starky said Loukaitis looked in control of himself and the situation.

“Actually he was really calm,” she said. “Normal. Like he knew what was going on.”

Sgt. Richard Keller of the Moses Lake Police Department said he put Loukaitis under arrest, strip-searched him at the police station and put him in a cell. He described Loukaitis as: “Very sarcastic. Calm. Cold-blooded.”

After he was locked in a cell, Loukaitis rolled up in a ball on his bunk bed, covered his head with a blanket and fell asleep, Keller said.

The defense is expected to open its case next week, and argue that Loukaitis’ calm demeanor actually masked a sickness so deep he was incapable of feeling remorse.

On Thursday, an allegation accusing one of the jurors of misconduct for discussing the trial at a Mariners game proved to be false.

Prosecutors were relieved, since three jurors have been dismissed since the trial started, leaving just one alternate.

The trial was moved to Seattle because of extensive pretrial publicity in Eastern Washington.

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