Man Arrested After Pullman Assault

Fri., May 7, 1999

By Andrea Vogt andreav@spokesman.com

One Washington State University student is in custody and another man is being sought for allegedly beating a Pullman man while posing as pizza deliverers.

David Joseph Baarstad, 22, a WSU junior from Spokane, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of third-degree assault and second-degree criminal trespass, authorities said.

A Whitman County sheriff’s deputy tracked him down through the address on a pizza box left at the scene of the attack.

WSU student David Soumas, 23, and his fiancee, Michelle Maidl, were at their home on the Moscow-Pullman highway Wednesday night when two men in pizza-delivery clothes knocked at the door. Soumas was beaten after he answered the door and said he didn’t order a pizza.

Soumas, whose wedding is scheduled for Sunday and whose fiancee is graduating from WSU Saturday, was treated at Pullman Memorial Hospital for bruises and cuts that required stitches on the right side of his face.

“It’s an incident that happened and we are just trying to get past it,” said Tom Soumas, the victim’s father. “We have a wedding and a graduation this weekend. Everything is going forward. He’s recovering.”

Soumas said his son had never seen Baarstad before, but had been in e-mail contact with him through an online class.

“It seems they got into a conflict on the computer and (Baarstad) got mad and went over and beat the heck out of him,” Whitman County Deputy Prosecutor Tobin Krauel said.

According to the probable cause for arrest affidavit, Soumas told authorities he believed he had already addressed the problem with the class instructor.

At the scene, Deputy Brett Myers found a Pizza Pipeline box, a warming bag and a Godfather’s Pizza hat. The pizza box listed an address behind the suspect’s home.

Myers is now attempting to identify the second suspect. Anyone with information is asked to contact him at (509) 397-6266.

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