Man gets 3 months for beating wife

A Spokane man who assaulted his wife for five hours, beating her unconscious, is to report to jail Thursday to begin serving a three-month sentence.

Dale Eugene Stovall, 50, pleaded guilty earlier this month to second-degree assault, attempting to tamper with a witness and violation of a no-contact order.

A first-degree kidnapping charge was dismissed.

Stovall and his wife, Jeannie, had gone to the Broadway Tavern on Nov. 27, where they drank and he fared poorly in a pool tournament, according to court documents.

When they went home early the next morning, he began to beat her for what she thought was retaliation for an incident earlier that month in which a court ordered him to stay away from her after he was arrested on suspicion of domestic assault.

Jeannie Stovall told police her husband told her, “You’re not gonna come out of this one alive.”

She said he beat her in the face with closed fists until she passed out.

When she revived, he choked her, threw a lamp into her face and beat her with his fists and household objects over the course of five hours.

Police said they found the victim severely injured when she called for help after her husband left the home.

The sentence handed down by Superior Court Judge Linda Tompkins was the low end of Dale Stovall’s standard range.

His standard maximum would have been nine months. He had credit for 23 days already served.