Murder Accomplice Drops Bid For Pardon Still Insists He Was Provoked Into Entering Guilty Plea

An accomplice in the 1982 jailhouse slaying of a Nampa teenager on Tuesday withdrew his crude request for a pardon on grounds that his confession was altered.

In a statement telefaxed to news agencies and to the judge who handled his case, Richard Bradley Engie said he stood by his charges a week ago that the tape of his confession was tampered with and he was provoked into pleading guilty to felony battery in connection with the beating death of 17-year-old Christopher Peterman.

But he said he was revoking his offer of a week ago to take a lie detector test and use the results to justify a pardon.

“I offer no reason,” the statement said. “It is very apparent they (cops) have not learned from their past mistakes, as it has become very evident it is not their wish to have it known.”

Engie also claimed that federal agents were trying to “set me up with fraud, racketeering, mail fraud, forgery” to get his cooperation “on personal family issues” and that they have members of his family working with them.

He said he would welcome an independent inquiry into his case although he “probably would not trust them either.”

Engie, now 32 and listing a Marysville, Wash., post office box address, was with four other 17-year-olds in the Ada County Jail over the 1982 Memorial Day weekend when Peterman was arrested and jailed with them for failing to pay $73 in fines for driving violations.

Trial testimony later indicated that over a period of several hours, Engie and others repeatedly punched and kicked Peterman in the head. Peterman was found unconscious by jailers and died a short time later of brain injuries.

Engie was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to the lesser charge in return for prosecutors dropping a first-degree murder charge.

Andy Anderson and Randall McKeown pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were each sentenced to over 20 years in prison.

Sean Matthews found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Engie was released in the late 1980s. The others were also paroled - Matthews the last in December 1996.

One officer involved with the case contended that if Engie believed the evidence against him was tampered with he or his attorney should have raised the issue before his conviction.

The Peterman case forced major changes in Idaho’s juvenile laws. The most sweeping was a requirement that juveniles be held in facilities separate from adults.