Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Zoo fire hurts two workers


Dallas
 (The Spokesman-Review)
Compiled from wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Seattle An accidental fire at a circuit breaker panel injured two workers Monday at the Animal Health Hospital at Woodland Park Zoo.

The two private-contract workers were doing electrical work in the hospital when the fire occurred around 11 a.m., Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said.

Power had not been completely shut off to the circuit breaker panel and one worker’s clothes caught fire when he contacted live wires, Fitzpatrick said.

One man suffered second-degree burns to his chest and the other man had burns to his hand and wrist. Both were transported to Harborview Medical Center. Neither injury was considered life-threatening, Fitzpatrick said.

Zoo employees had extinguished the fire by the time firefighters arrived.

Historic cemetery vandalized

Sumner, Wash. The historic City Cemetery in this Pierce County community was vandalized last weekend with 25 tombstones – some almost 150 years old – toppled over.

According to police, 20 of the tombstones were snapped off, while another five were shattered. The vandalism was discovered early Saturday morning when the cemetery clerk was making her morning rounds.

One wooden grave marker was taken from the cemetery. Officials believe the marker was from 1860 and was taken as a souvenir.

The tombstones stood over graves dug between 1860 and 1935. The stones were damaged along a straight line through an older section of the cemetery, police said.

Drugs were used to kill girls

Everett Two girls who police believe were killed by their father Nov. 22 died of acute drug intoxication, the Snohomish County medical examiner said.

Hayley Byrne, 9, and Kelsey Byrne, 11, were discovered inside their father’s Edmonds home. Stephen Byrne, 50, was found in the back yard, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

According to police, Stephen Byrne sent an e-mail to family and friends saying he was going to harm himself and his daughters. Byrne said he was angry with the court system for granting his ex-wife, Suzanne Dawson, primary custody of the girls. The two divorced in 2000 in Kitsap County.

Stephen Byrne called 911 and told dispatchers to send police and medics, then killed himself, police said.

Claude Dallas to be released

Boise Claude Dallas, a self-styled mountain man who shot and killed two state game wardens in 1981, will be released from prison next month, Idaho Department of Correction spokeswoman Tracy McBain said.

Dallas, 55, will complete his 30-year prison sentence, minus administrative reductions, on Feb. 6 for two counts of voluntary manslaughter and a weapons charge in the deaths of Bill Pogue and Conley Elms.

The two Idaho Fish and Game officers approached Dallas at his desert camp in Owyhee County accusing him of poaching game.

They took a pistol he was wearing, but Dallas then pulled another pistol that was strapped to his leg, shot both officers, then shot both again in the head with a nearby rifle, according to trial testimony.

He was charged with first-degree murder, but claimed he shot the officers in self-defense. A jury found him guilty of two counts of voluntary manslaughter, concealing evidence and using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

Dallas escaped from the Idaho State Penitentiary in March 1986 by cutting through two chain link fences, and evaded capture for almost a year. After his capture in California in 1987, a jury acquitted him of escape after he testified he fled the Idaho prison because guards threatened him.

Since then, Dallas has been incarcerated on his original conviction in prisons in Nebraska, New Mexico and Kansas.