New witnesses delay trial
Newly discovered jailhouse witnesses have emerged in the case of a Cheney man charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend.
At least two of the inmates, all of whom had spent time in the Spokane County Jail with homicide suspect John E. Lipinski during the past year, are expected to testify in the murder trial, a deputy prosecutor said Thursday. Their emergence has caused delays in the trial, which originally was expected to conclude this week.
Lipinski, 21, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the Aug. 11, 2004, death of 19-year-old girlfriend Melissa Saldivar. Their baby girl, Mataya, was delivered from her mother by an emergency procedure but died on Oct. 1, 2004.
Assistant Public Defender John Stine spent most of the day questioning accident reconstruction expert Steve Kukuruza, who disagrees with the prosecution’s theory that Saldivar suffered her fatal skull fracture by being kicked out of a moving car.
Kukuruza played a video tape showing a mannequin being pushed out of a similar car and at speeds indicated by Lipinski in police reports. Kukuruza said the most likely scenario would have been that Saldivar fell onto her side and rolled and not on the back of her head as suggested by the prosecution.
However, Deputy Prosecutor Steve Garvin asked if the mannequin could adequately depict how a real body would fall out of a moving car. Kukuruza conceded that it did not.
Garvin also asked Kukuruza what challenges are posed by not having a crime scene to study.
Lipinski never showed detectives where Saldivar’s body hit the pavement. “When you don’t have a crime scene, it is very problematic for an investigation,” Kukuruza said.
Memorial to celebrate boy
An 8-year-old boy involved in a canoe accident last June has died of complications from his injuries.
Benjamin David Morin’s life will be celebrated at 1 p.m. today during a funeral at St. Peter Catholic Church, 3520 E. 18th Ave.
Benjamin was pinned underwater for about 20 minutes June 5 after the canoe he was in hit a bridge abutment in the Spokane River near People’s Park.
He was hospitalized for an extended period of time but later returned home and briefly went back to school. Spokane School District officials said Benjamin was attending Moran Prairie, a special education school, next door to where he had previously attended the first grade at Mullan Road Elementary School.
Paul Stone, Mullan Road principal, sent a letter home to families after learning Benjamin had died at home on Sunday: “Ben Morin loved life and enjoyed coming to school. He had many friends and enjoyed playing, learning and just having fun. Ben’s smile was infectious, and he was a happy boy who cared about everyone.”
Olympia
Election challenges dismissed
The state Supreme Court, tidying up legal remnants of Washington’s twisted 2004 governor’s race, on Thursday dismissed four challenges to Gov. Chris Gregoire’s narrow election victory.
In a 7-2 decision, justices ruled that three election challenges filed by individual voters did not have legal merit to proceed under state law. The fourth case, which had better legal footing, was dismissed because it mirrored the state Republican Party’s failed court case against the election.
Four Washingtonians filed the cases in January 2005, around the time Gregoire was declared the winner – by 129 votes. Her Republican opponent in the race, Dino Rossi, and the state GOP challenged the outcome in court.
Their case convinced Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges of Wenatchee that 1,678 illegal votes were cast in the election, out of 2.9 million. But Bridges said there wasn’t evidence of how those illegal voters marked their ballots.
In Thursday’s ruling, the court dismissed a separate challenge from Suzanne D. Karr of Snohomish County as too closely mirroring the settled GOP case.