Sad story, tragic end

On the day after Christmas, a desperate Joseph Kalani Hatchie walked into a cigarette store near the Idaho state line with an unloaded pellet gun. He never walked out.

The 47-year-old father and former military policeman, had no criminal record, faced a December eviction from his family’s rental duplex in Greenacres and a pile of medical bills. But he told his wife not to worry about the money problems.

On Monday, the day before he was to meet with an attorney about the eviction, Hatchie kissed his wife goodbye and drove his brother home.

Just before 8 p.m., he pulled on a gray ski mask, walked into Lew’s Smokeshop and pointed his son’s pellet gun – designed to look like a Walther P-9 semiautomatic – at the clerk’s chest. When the clerk reached under the counter, he came up with a .40-caliber semiautomatic and shot Hatchie 10 times, according to police.

Hatchie’s family is struggling to reconcile the loving husband and father with the man who tried to rob a store with an empty pellet gun.

“I don’t know what was going through his mind,” said his mother, 67-year-old Shirley Lee Carver. “It’s just not Joe.”

He was, his family said, a good man in a bad financial situation when he walked into Lew’s. The store, a popular stop for Washington smokers because of Idaho’s lower taxes on tobacco, had been robbed twice in the past five years, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office.

“We’re all shocked and upset that he felt that desperate,” his wife, Kim, said. “What he did was wrong. He made a dumb mistake. But there aren’t many people in this economy who find themselves in that position and don’t feel desperate.”

Kootenai County Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said his department will produce a report for the prosecutor by the end of this week at the earliest. The prosecutor will determine whether charges will be filed against the store clerk, whose name has not been released, or whether the shooting was a case of justifiable homicide, Wolfinger said.

On Tuesday, the department produced a display of the pellet gun alongside real firearms to show how authentic the pellet gun appeared.

“We wanted to do this display just so you understand what this poor clerk saw last night and, in that split-second, what decision he had to make,” Wolfinger said Tuesday.

An employee at Lew’s said the store’s owner was in California and unavailable for comment.

A 1972 graduate of Coeur d’Alene High School, Hatchie was a strapping hunter and fisherman of Hawaiian descent who sang in the school choir. After several years working with the U.S. Air Force police, Hatchie quit the military. He worked as regional manager for a telecommunications company until he lost his job in 2000.

By Christmas, according to his family, he found himself enmeshed in a web of financial troubles: His landlord delivered an eviction notice this month. His wife lost her job at a grocery store after an on-the-job injury led to a severe infection. The family appealed to a church that his wife had once attended but was told they were “unworthy,” his wife said.

“Everything just seemed to hit a head right now,” Kim said. “I think he just didn’t know what to do.”

Spokane County Superior Court records indicate that James and Jackie Wolff own the Hatchie’s duplex. Court records show that the Wolffs filed an eviction complaint in 2004, stating Hatchie owed them $1,315.

Wolff, a Spokane attorney, said Wednesday he was uncertain if he owned the property, or who lived there. He said his property manager tries not to evict tenants during the holidays.

“We usually have a history of problems with people before we go to the next step,” Wolff said. “They are never evicted summarily.”

Whatever drove Hatchie to his botched robbery Monday, it marked a sharp departure from his day-to-day life, his family said.

On a street lined with duplexes in Greenacres, Hatchie was the neighborhood handyman, helping people repair their cars, televisions or computers. He stayed at home with his four children, and took time to stop by his mother’s home for morning coffee, his family said.

“I want him to be remembered for how he lived, not how he died,” Kim Hatchie said. “I miss him, and I always will.”

Hatchie said she has been sending out six resumes a week, blanketing the region with job applications.

In a small trailer just a few miles from the cigarette store, Hatchie’s mother sat on her couch Wednesday and uttered a common prayer, a familiar refrain to those who have lost a loved one.

“I just want to see him walk through my door one more time, just one more time,” she said.

Carver lost her husband, a retired firefighter, last Easter. She said she is exhausted by death.

“I told the man upstairs I can’t take much more,” she said.

As rain beat against the windows, Carver struggled to make sense of the shooting. Carver once worked as a clerk at a convenience store. She understands the fear of working long night hours.

“I’m sure his adrenaline was running high, but my god, why so many times?” Carver asked through tears.

Staff writers Taryn Brodwater and Nina Culver contributed to this report. Benjamin Shors can be reached at (509) 459-5484 or by e-mail at benjamins@spokesman.com.