Affidavit filed in Spokane teen’s killing

POLSON, Mont. – A man accused of strangling a woman at a house in Arlee told another man that “I kept hitting her and hitting her,” then warned him not to say anything before her body was dragged out of the house, according to a prosecutor’s affidavit.

Lake County Attorney Mitch Young filed the affidavit in support of a murder charge against Kelly Birmingham, accused in the May 29 death of Tasheena Craft, 18. She had lived in Arlee but was attending high school in Spokane, where she lived with her brother.

Birmingham is to be arraigned Thursday.

Court records said Craft was beaten and strangled at a house while her sister and the sister’s boyfriend slept upstairs.

The boyfriend, Chance Crowder, said he got up to use the bathroom between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m., when he looked downstairs and saw Birmingham dragging Craft’s naked body toward the front door. Crowder told investigators he went upstairs and lay down next to Craft’s sister, Shayla Cote, after Birmingham told him not to reveal what he saw.

“He heard banging noises coming from downstairs and later heard (Birmingham’s) pickup leave,” according to court records. Crowder then awakened Cote and told her that her sister had been taken, according to the records. The sister called police.

Birmingham was arrested about four hours later and confessed to killing Craft, said Lake County Undersheriff Jay Doyle. Investigators said he told them Craft had said his father, Wayne Stanfield, was not a good person. Stanfield died in a motorcycle crash near Missoula two days earlier.

Besides a murder charge, Birmingham also faces charges of evidence tampering – tied to allegations that he removed Craft’s body from the crime scene and cleaned her bedroom with bleach – and witness tampering.

Craft was in Arlee to visit her Marine boyfriend who was on leave from Iraq, her family said.

An honorary diploma for Craft was accepted Friday at Havermale High School by her sister.