Shackelford Expected To Take Stand At Trial Prosecution Rests; Defense Tries To Get Charges Dropped

Dale Shackelford is expected to take the stand today to defend himself against a double-murder charge.

On Monday morning, the prosecution rested its case in the lengthy trial in which Shackelford is charged with killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend in May 1999.

The afternoon in 2nd District Court belonged to the defense - and Shackelford’s two attorneys spent it trying to poke holes of doubt in the state’s case. They finished by announcing to the court that their client would likely take the stand.

Shackelford is charged with murdering Donna Fontaine and Fred Palahniuk at Fontaine’s remote property outside Kendrick, Idaho.

Defense attorney Steve Mahaffy first made motions to drop all the charges on the basis that over the past seven weeks prosecutors have failed to put Shackelford at the scene of the crime, failed to prove that he fired the guns that killed Fontaine and Palahniuk and failed to show that he set fire to the building in which their bodies were found.

“They haven’t shown who pulled a trigger,” Mahaffy argued to the judge. He also said the state failed to demonstrate that Shackelford planned the killings or that he conspired with anyone else to commit the crimes.

“I don’t think the state has shown there is any premeditation or malice aforethought,” Mahaffy said.

He made his arguments after seven weeks of testimony in which witnesses testified to threats that Shackelford made against his ex-wife. Also, two of Shackelford’s past girlfriends said that, at Shackelford’s urging, they had tried to kill Fontaine on several occasions.

The judge denied all of the defense motions, allowing the case to continue.

After a 15-minute opening statement, Mahaffy and co-counsel D. Ray Barker turned their focus to Brian Abitz, the 17-year-old brother of Dale Shackelford’s fiancee. They suggested that he could have been responsible for the deaths of Fontaine and Palahniuk at the remote property outside of Kendrick where Fontaine was building a house.

Jerry and Cindy Sutton testified. The Lewiston couple had been camping near Fontaine’s property, and the area where Brian Abitz’s parents lived, and his sister Sonja Abitz shared a home with Shackelford.

The Suttons both said that they met Brian Abitz when they found him combing through their camp for chairs to take down the road to where he was having a party. Their acquaintance grew into a friendship, with them even creating a spot in their camp for him to stay.

“He seemed to be all right, just a little misplaced I guess,” Jerry Sutton said.

They said they shot at targets with him, let him play with their children and tried to be positive influences.

While the teenager was there, his mother, Mary Abitz, who along with Sonja Abitz has been charged as a coconspirator in the murders, came over to the Sutton campsite a few times. The conversation often turned to Fontaine, who Mary Abitz said was causing her family grief, Cindy Sutton said.

Fontaine had filed rape charges against Shackelford in Missouri and as a result, Shackelford’s marriage to Sonja Abitz had been postponed. The Abitz family was helping with Shackelford’s attorney fees in the Missouri rape case.

When asked how Mary Abitz felt about Fontaine, Sutton said it was obvious.

“She had a major disdain for her,” Cindy Sutton said. “It was almost an obsession.”

At one time, not long before the murders, Mary Abitz said something that shocked Cindy Sutton. “She said `We are a Christian community and we all want to see her (Fontaine) dead,”’ Sutton said.

Regarding May 29, 1999 - the day Fontaine and Palahniuk were killed - both Suttons testified that Brian Abitz woke up uncharacteristically early and left the camp before 7 a.m. They said he came back later in the day, but left again saying he had to help put out a fire. When he came back, the Suttons said, he told them that at least two people had died in the fire and they were upstairs in the building that was burned.

Jerry Sutton also testified that some time after the murders, Brian Abitz changed a set of tires on his truck for ones of lesser quality. The defense finished the day by announcing Shackelford will likely take the stand. The attorneys also argued to continue to suppress information, including that Shackelford had spent time in prison and that he has been accused of raping a minor.

Hannelore Sudermann can be reached at (509) 459-5419 or by e-mail at hannelores@spokesman.com.