State aid sought for murder case

EPHRATA, Wash. – Beset by nine trial delays, an escape attempt, frequent toilet clogging and reportedly the hurling of urine at jailers, Grant County officials are asking for state help in an aggravated murder case.

The county’s request for $101,000, filed last Wednesday with the state’s Office of Public Defense, covers only the “tip of the iceberg” in the cost of prosecuting Dustin Gene Abrams, 23, of Moses Lake, charged with killing Michael B. Mallon, 79, said June Strickler, administrative services coordinator in the county commissioners’ office.

“What we have submitted is not a very realistic number,” Strickler said. “It’s low and it’s ultraconservative.”

With the case set for trial Feb. 26, authorities have had a hard time documenting all the related expenses, she said.

Among the costs Strickler said were not included in the request:

“Expenses relating to Abrams’ escape attempt in August 2005, when he chiseled halfway through the cinder blocks of his cell before being caught. Repairs were previously pegged at $1,500. He was later convicted of second-degree escape and malicious mischief.

“Decontamination procedures, laboratory analysis and lost employee time from mail containing a “white, powdery substance” he is believed to have sent to the prosecutor’s office.

“Maintenance and repair of damage caused by frequent clogging of Abrams’ toilet and the resulting overflow.

“Response to his voluminous requests for public records, including one for the degree of protection provided by bullet-resistant vests worn by sheriff’s deputies.

Abrams was serving time in the state penitentiary in Walla Walla for stealing guns from Mallon when he was charged with killing him in June 2005. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

Mallon was reported missing in April 2004. His guns were later found at the home of a couple who said they had bought the weapons from Abrams, and Abrams was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the theft in June 2004.

Later that year he told deputies he had shot Mallon to death in late March 2004 when he was caught stealing guns at the older man’s home near Willows Lake, about eight miles north of Soap Lake. Mallon’s remains were found that November in a shallow grave about 200 feet from his house.

More recently, in documents filed by prosecutors in Superior Court, Abrams was accused of drenching a guard with urine, threatening to splatter feces and water on an officer, making and concealing sharpened metal blades known as “shanks” and telling another inmate he wanted to kill a guard he said had “made fun of him.”

He was charged in June with intimidating a public servant, assault, malicious mischief, possession of deadly weapons and harassment with threats to kill.

In a court hearing on those charges on Jan. 10 he said he was innocent by reason of insanity and had been hearing voices in his head that said jail guards were scheming to kill him.

Judge John Hotchkiss of Douglas County, who conducted the hearing after all three Grant County Superior Court judges were dismissed, granted Abrams a mental evaluation by a psychologist of his own choosing within 30 days over the objections of Prosecutor John D. Knodell III, who accused the defendant of trying to delay the trial further.

A psychologist from Eastern State Hospital previously determined Abrams was faking symptoms of a mental disorder, Hotchkiss was told.