Murderer Can’t Give Jailers The Slip

Wed., March 18, 1998

Associated Press

Linniell Phipps Jr. was reluctant to go to court to face his sentence for fatally shooting a woman and wounding three men in a soured drug deal.

Jail officials say Phipps smeared liquid soap all over his body and the floor of his jail cell and fought with guards who came to escort him to the courtroom Monday.

Corrections officers squirted his face with pepper spray to subdue him.

Once in court, King County Superior Court Judge Brian Gain sentenced him to 125-1/2 years in prison, the top end of the standard penalty range.

Phipps was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder at the end of a non-jury trial Jan. 22.

Prosecutors had charged the 23-year-old transient with the March 20, 1997, shotgun slaying of Tressa Louise Davis, 31. They said Phipps was enraged because the woman paid him only $18 for a $20 rock of crack cocaine.

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