Killer’S Girlfriend Admits Attacking Sheriff But Avoids Murder Rap

Fri., May 22, 1998

By John Craig johnc@spokesman.com

FOR THE RECORD (May 23, 1998): Story wrong: Donald L. Edmondson, 30; Randy E. Thomas, 38; and Edward P. Becker, 25, pleaded guilty to rendering criminal assistance for their roles in a murder last October in Stevens County. Due to an editing error in Friday’s paper, their names were incorrectly listed as among the law enforcement officers who responded to a confrontation involving two other people evicted from a trailer park in Addy, Wash.

Tina M. Sokoll pleaded guilty Thursday to bashing Sheriff Craig Thayer’s car, but she escaped prosecution for her role in a slaying committed by her boyfriend.

The boyfriend, Scott A. Lindsey, is expected to plead guilty next month to fourth-degree assault for swinging a baseball bat at Thayer and his administrative assistant when they and other officers evicted Lindsey and Sokoll from a trailer park in Addy, Wash., last January.

Lindsey, 32, had been charged with second-degree assault in that incident, but the reduction will make little difference.

Under a plea bargain he made last week with Stevens County prosecutor Jerry Wetle, the assault sentence would run concurrent with his sentence for killing David Trail last October.

Lindsey pleaded guilty last week to first-degree murder for shooting Trail, 26, nine or 10 times and burying him in a shallow grave outside his trailer home near Blue Creek, Wash., in the central part of the county.

Sentencing is set for June 11. Wetle said he will seek a sentence longer than the standard range for murder. A standard-range sentence would be 26 to 31 years.

Sokoll, 25, wasn’t present during the killing but allegedly took the weapon - a .22-caliber revolver - to her mother.

“The issue was whether she concealed the weapon, and what she did was to disclose the weapon,” Wetle said. “She took it to her mother and told her what happened. Her mother then contacted a church member to find out what to do and eventually turned it in to the sheriff’s office.”

Lindsey and three other men attacked Trail after his girlfriend complained to them that he assaulted her.

The killing wasn’t discovered until February, after Lindsey and Sokoll were charged in the eviction confrontation with sheriff’s officers. The aluminum baseball Lindsey swung at Thayer is believed to have been used earlier in the attack on Trail.

Lindsey dropped the bat and surrendered after Thayer drew his pistol and Undersheriff Gilbert Geer shouldered an assault rifle. Lindsey continued to swear at officers and yelled several times for Sokoll to go get a gun.

She got in a car and rammed the back bumper of Thayer’s patrol car. When Thayer grabbed her door handle and ordered her to stop, she took off in the other direction. Thayer and a deputy gave chase in their patrol cars.

The sheriff had to pull Sokoll from her car, with her clinging to the steering wheel, after she stopped in a driveway. She dented the fender of Thayer’s car by thrashing around while officers - Donald L. Edmondson, 30, Randy E. Thomas, 38, and Edward P. Becker, 25 - handcuffed her and searched her for weapons.

Sokoll pleaded guilty Thursday to third-degree malicious mischief and reckless driving. She was ordered to pay yet-undetermined restitution, but Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson suspended her jail sentence.

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