Murdered girl’s mom sues CdA

Bonnie Heilander’s teenage daughter was raped and beheaded in the North Idaho woods four years ago by a sex offender and his son after Heilander had pleaded with several police agencies to remove the runaway girl from the man’s trailer.

In Kootenai County District Court on Monday, Heilander sued the city of Coeur d’Alene for negligence and wrongful death, contending the police department ignored her attempts to report her daughter, 14-year-old Carissa Benway, as a runaway and failed to run a background check on David “Coon” Merritt, now serving a life sentence for murder.

The suit has been assigned to 1st District Court Judge John Mitchell. No date has been set.

A similar suit was dismissed last month in federal court when U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Winmill ruled that Coeur d’Alene police actions didn’t violate either Heilander’s or her late daughter’s civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Winmill, in his May 12 ruling, noted the remaining claims in the suit are based on Idaho law and should be heard in a state court.

Neither Heilander nor her attorney, John Layman of Spokane, could be reached for comment Tuesday.

The disappearance and death of Carissa Benway began in a sort of murky street world where a troubled adolescent runs away – again and again – from a troubled home, often stealing cash or jewelry along the way. The claims and counterclaims and underlying tensions can test a police officer’s patience and sense of cynicism.

Benway’s name and tragic final days only became well-known after Kootenai County Sheriff’s detectives Brad Maskell and Dan Mattos, working at first with little more than a jawbone found by grouse hunters in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest, pieced together a case that sent Merritt to jail for the rest of his life.

Merritt’s son Cody, 16 at the time Benway was murdered in early July 2000, was sentenced to five years in prison. The detectives uncovered a sick pact between father and son, apparently to earn the younger Merritt a black rose tattoo to indicate he had killed.

Benway’s name lives on through a bill that Heilander and Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas pushed through the Legislature during the 2003 session widening the state’s sex-offender notification laws. Heilander has said she met the Merritts as neighbors in a trailer park along state Highway 41 north of Post Falls. Cody Merritt, Heilander has said, was one of Benway’s first friends at school, and the elder Merritt seemed like a concerned parent.

She had no way of knowing, she said, that “Coon” Merritt was a convicted felon and sex offender.

After Heilander moved her family to Coeur d’Alene, Benway began running away, often hanging out at Merritt’s trailer. That’s where Benway went after running away for the final time on June 13, 2000. Merritt talked Benway into going on a camping trip over the Fourth of July weekend. Police believe she was tied to a pole, raped and beheaded on or about July 1.

Heilander has said she learned of Benway’s whereabouts when Merritt called on June 22 asking for the teenager’s birth certificate. According to Heilander, Merritt wanted a copy so he could alter the girl’s age to 18 so she could get a job selling pornography.

In her suit, Heilander said she immediately called Officer Ron Detwiler of the Coeur d’Alene police, told him where her daughter was and asked for a background check on Merritt. Detwiler had been assigned to investigate a burglary report after Benway was accused of stealing items from a renter at her mother’s house when she ran away.

After her call, Detwiler said he’d “take care of it,” but never did, Heilander said in her suit. She also said police refused at least twice more in the following days to let her report Benway as a runaway.

In affidavits filed in the federal court case, Detwiler and city attorneys dispute Heilander’s allegations. Heilander can’t claim Detwiler took no action because she never called the officer again, the city said in a federal court document.

The city also produced telephone records from city and county dispatchers showing that Heilander called the sheriff’s department twice and Coeur d’Alene police twice to report her daughter had run away. This falls short, city attorney Randall Adams said, of Heilander’s calling authorities every time the girl ran away, an amount that Heilander termed “a bunch of times” in court documents.

Heilander is asking for a jury trial and damages to be determined at trial.