Judge Delays Double-Murder Trial

A judge Friday ordered a two-month delay in the trial of a 16-year-old youth charged in the shooting deaths of his girlfriend’s parents.

Walla Walla County Superior Court Judge Robert Zagelow granted a prosecution request to reschedule the trial to Nov. 12 so that DNA tests on a piece of defendant Michael Jansen’s blood-spattered clothing can be completed.

The Walla Walla youth had been scheduled to go on trial Monday on two counts of first-degree murder in the July 24 slayings of Lester Leroy Lake, 66, and his wife Velma Jean, 64.

Prosecutor Jim Nagle said the DNA tests wouldn’t be completed by a state crime lab for at least seven weeks. Zagelow agreed that was sufficient reason to delay past the Oct. 7 speedy-trial limit, over the objection of defense lawyer William McCool.

McCool maintained that the prosecution wasn’t diligent in getting the tests done.

“I have a 16-year-old who has been sitting in jail for five weeks,” he said.

Jansen is being held without bail at the county jail.

Prosecutors allege Jansen shot the Lakes in the bedroom of their home outside Walla Walla, using a 9 mm pistol he stole from his father.

Sheriff’s deputies found the gun four days later in a creek beneath a bridge.

The Lakes’ 16-year-old daughter, Starr, - Jansen’s girlfriend - told investigators she discovered her parents’ bodies. She said that Jansen, her boyfriend, had been at the Lake home earlier in the evening.

Jansen left on his bicycle that night, she said. She said she then went to sleep in the home’s basement.

She told investigators she later heard shots and discovered her parents’ bodies when she went up to the main floor. xxxx