Bail $500,000 For Murder Suspects Search Continues For Third Suspect

A Spokane woman and a man who once worked for her are being held in the county jail on $500,000 bond as suspects in the death of the woman’s cancer-stricken husband.

Dianne Rhodes and John Fiedler made their first court appearances Monday after being arrested for the suspected murder of Paul Rhodes last October.

Dianne Rhodes and Fiedler were arrested Friday. Sheriff’s investigators believe Paul Rhodes may have wanted help committing suicide from family and friends before changing his mind, according to a court affidavit.

While Rhodes and Fiedler remain behind bars, detectives continue to search for Angela Boyette, a third suspect in the case and the former daughter-in-law of the Rhodeses.

Boyette has hired Dennis Cronin, an attorney with Maxey Law Offices, to represent her.

“She’s in town, she is going to stay in town and she is innocent,” Cronin said.

But the possibility of leaving is what made District Court Commissioner Virginia Rockwood set high bond for the suspects.

Rhodes, 49, and Fiedler, 21, are facing second-degree murder charges.

Rockwood told Fiedler he was a risk to leave because he’s lived in Spokane only for seven months. Before moving to Spokane he lived in Texas. He has a conviction in that state for forgery, Rockwood said.

Fiedler told sheriff’s investigators that he was an employee of Dianne Rhodes after moving to Spokane.

Rhodes’ attorney, Shane Hernandez, argued that her businesses and family commitments make her unlikely to flee. He argued for a lower bond.

“She’s been a Spokane resident for nine years, she owns two businesses and has no prior criminal history,” said Hernandez.

Paul Rhodes died of a morphine overdose in Mead, according to the county medical examiner’s office. He was terminally ill with a tumor in his abdomen.

In an affidavit, a Spokane County sheriff’s detective said that friends and relatives may have conspired to help Rhodes carry out a death wish.

When pudding laced with cough suppressant pills didn’t work, Boyette injected liquid morphine into Rhodes intravenously, the affidavit said.

Rhodes had earlier agreed to the method of ending his life. But when he asked Boyette to stop the morphine injections, he was refused, authorities say.

The case came to the attention of authorities when a hospice nurse who had been caring for Rhodes went to the home after the death Oct. 12 to retrieve pain-killing narcotics.

A 50-cubic-centimeter bag of morphine was missing from the refrigerator.

Assisted suicide is illegal in Washington. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on physician-assisted suicide.