Man charged in teenager’s 1982 strangulation

Formal charges were filed Wednesday against the suspect in a 22-year-old murder case.

Arbie D. Williams, 61, was charged with first-degree murder in the September 1982 strangulation of 15-year-old Linda S. Strait. Williams was identified as a suspect last summer by DNA testing.

Deputy Prosecutor Kelly Fitzgerald alleged in Spokane County Superior Court that the crime occurred in the course of a first-degree kidnapping, while Williams was attempting to commit rape.

Fitzgerald didn’t elaborate further on how she believes the crime occurred.

Judge Greg Sypolt signed a warrant for Williams’ arrest at McNeil Island Correction Center. Williams is confined there as a sex offender who kidnapped two 8-year-old girls in May 1983 and raped one of them.

Sypolt set bail at $1 million on the murder charge.

Williams was sentenced to slightly less than 11 years for the 1983 crimes, in which he choked the rape victim and left her unconscious in a mountain clearing near Sherman Road, 1 1/2 miles north of the Spokane County line.

Strait’s body was found in the Spokane River near Plantes Ferry Park in the Spokane Valley a day after she disappeared. Her mother, Donna Ragland, said Strait was walking to the Safeway store at Monroe and Francis from their nearby home on West Avon when she was last seen.

Investigators found a semen-stained pillowcase under Strait’s sweat shirt and a pubic hair on the sweat shirt.

DNA testing wasn’t available in 1982 and was inconclusive in 1989 and 1998. But a private laboratory, using newer techniques, was able last year to establish a partial genetic profile of the suspect.

When the partial profile was compared to a database of DNA samples from convicted Washington felons, authorities found a match in Williams. The chances of the semen on the pillowcase coming from anyone but Williams are one in 750,000, Fitzgerald said in a court document.

Other DNA testing indicated the hair found on Strait’s sweat shirt could have come from Williams, according to Fitzgerald.

She said sheriff’s Detective Tim Hines interviewed Williams at McNeil Island in June last year, and Williams acknowledged he had been living in Deer Park with a woman named Joan Johnson at the time Strait disappeared. Williams denied having any connection with Strait, Fitzgerald stated.

Williams was sentenced to almost 11 years in prison in June 1983, but state law allows a parole board to keep him locked up as long as it considers him dangerous.

Williams pleaded guilty to first-degree rape and first-degree kidnapping involving the two 8-year-old girls he forced into his car about 5 p.m. on May 12, 1983, at Trent Elementary School on North Pines. He drove around until dark and made the girls undress.

One of the victims escaped while Williams was moving the other to the back seat, where he raped her. He drove to a mountainous area and raped the girl again before choking her and leaving her on the ground unconscious.

When the girl revived, she saw a light and walked to a house for help. She and the other victim gave investigators detailed descriptions of their attacker and his car.

The next morning, as two sheriff’s officers were investigating the area where the rape victim was left unconscious, a car and driver matching the victims’ descriptions approached the scene. The motorist, Williams, claimed to be on his way to Horseshoe Lake to go fishing, but he had no fishing tackle.

The officers arrested Williams on the spot, and both victims identified him in a lineup.