Omak Cop Killer Sentenced To Life Without Parole Judge Also Imposes Maximum Sentence For Attempted Murder Conviction

Sat., Feb. 26, 2000

By John Craig johnc@spokesman.com

Juan Gonzalez Duarte was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole plus 36 years for shooting an Omak police officer to death and wounding another one in March 1998.

Superior Court Judge John Bridges had no choice in sentencing Gonzalez, 43, to life without parole for the aggravated first-degree murder of Officer Mike Marshall. Bridges imposed the maximum 36 years for the attempted first-degree murder of Marshall’s partner, Officer Don Eddy Jr.

The sentences are consecutive.

A week earlier, Prosecutor Rick Weber dropped two pending charges of illegal possession of a firearm and one of being an alien in possession of a gun. A Mexican citizen, Gonzalez was deported twice and served time in U.S. prisons for third-degree child rape, possession of stolen property and two drug-possession convictions.

He was on probation when Eddy and Marshall confronted him as the suspect in a domestic disturbance at Omak’s Stampede Motel. Gonzalez pointed two small handguns at the officers and fled down a dark alley. Gonzalez opened fire on the pursuing officers, striking Marshall in the head with a .25-caliber bullet.

Eddy shot Gonzalez twice and was handcuffing him when Gonzalez got an arm free and shot Eddy in the thigh. Despite his injury, Eddy disarmed Gonzalez, finished cuffing him and gave first aid to the mortally wounded Marshall before other officers arrived.

Marshall’s widow, Rhea, his teenage son, John, and his mother, Marge Flugel, were among the family members who told the court how Marshall’s murder affected their lives.

Gonzalez expressed remorse in a brief statement through an interpreter.

His court-appointed attorneys are appealing Gonzalez’s latest convictions. They moved unsuccessfully Friday for a new trial on a variety of grounds that Bridges rejected during the jury trial that ended three weeks ago in Lincoln County.

The trial was moved twice because of publicity, and Chelan County Judge Bridges presided because Okanogan County’s only Superior Court judge had a conflict.

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