Spouse charged in St. Maries killing

ST. MARIES – The wife of a man who is charged with killing a 76-year-old woman and burning down her house has been charged in the case.

Becky Banderob is charged with being an accessory to the murder of Miriam Waltch at Waltch’s Goosehaven home Feb. 4.

Prosecutors said Banderob tried to help her husband, Lawrence Ernest Banderob, 37, burn down the house and helped him cover up the killing.

Becky Banderob, 35, was released after posting $50,000 bail Friday in Benewah County Magistrate Court.

She maintains her husband abused her and forced her to help him cover up the killing.

Prosecutor Douglas Payne earlier had said he wouldn’t charge Becky Banderob with the crime or call her as a witness against her husband.

After Lawrence Banderob’s arrest, the prosecutor received a no-contact order barring Banderob from having any contact with his wife or daughter, both of whom were with him at different parts of the alleged crime.

But Friday, Payne said he received information that Becky Banderob, using an assumed name, tried to visit her husband at the Latah County Jail in Moscow.

The two have been in continual phone contact since his arrest, “so many calls you can’t listen to all of them,” Payne said.

Officials said Lawrence Banderob assaulted Waltch after he apparently went looking for another vehicle to pull his car out of a nearby ditch, then went inside as his 15-year-old daughter waited.

They said Becky Banderob went with her husband to the Waltch home in the early morning hours after the elderly woman was beaten and tied up with computer cords.

Officials said Lawrence Banderob returned to the home after the beating and shot the woman twice with a .22-caliber rifle, killing her.

Becky Banderob allegedly drove her husband back to the scene.

Investigators also said the couple returned to the Waltch home and Larry Banderob tried to set it on fire.

They said he gave his wife shell casings from the bullets used to kill the woman and she threw them in a wood stove.

Lawrence Banderob then allegedly hid the rifle in a feed bin and burned his blood-soaked clothes.

Investigators said they also found a glove in the front yard of Waltch’s home and its mate in Banderob’s car, smelling of gasoline.

Becky Banderob is being represented by Benewah County Public Defender Dave Rogers. She’s due back in court in a few weeks.

Lawrence Banderob faces a preliminary hearing on the charges next month. The couple’s daughter is now in state care.