Details are murky in killing of Rathdrum man

Friends and acquaintances of the man killed early Thursday by a woman who says he raped and stabbed her are having a tough time believing he could attack anyone.

“None of this is making sense,” said Carol Wyatt, a bartender at Hayden Lake Eagles Aerie 4080 and friend of David Lynn Foreman. “There are more questions than answers now.”

Among other things, the 41-year-old Foreman suffered from a childhood spinal injury that made walking difficult and kept him out of work that required physical exertion, Wyatt said, adding, “He was limited to what he could do.”

But while he was generally regarded as helpful and polite among those who knew him, court records show Foreman had a lengthy police rap sheet, including two convictions in Nebraska for attempted sexual assault in 1987 and two charges of battery and three of aggravated assault in the early 1990s in Kootenai County. He served two years in prison for the attempted sexual assaults and was in and out of jail in Idaho through the 1990s, according to various court records.

Foreman’s body was found on Hayden Creek Road early Thursday after a woman called 911 and said she’d been raped and stabbed by him. The woman said she’d stabbed her attacker and fled in his pickup, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department. The Sheriff’s Department said Hayden Creek Road is a dirt road accessible only with four-wheel drive vehicle.

The woman called while driving and lost cell service, then stopped at a house along East Hayden Lake Road, where a resident called 911, said Capt. Ben Wolfinger. The woman was about three or four miles from Foreman’s body when deputies reached her, Wolfinger said.

Investigators Friday remained tight-lipped about the case. Wolfinger declined to say how Foreman and the woman knew each other, what the two were doing in the remote area on the north side of Hayden Lake early Thursday, or whether the two were stabbed with the same weapon.

“We’re still putting this together,” he said. “Even if it’s a justifiable homicide, we treat it like a homicide. That’s a judgment the prosecutor has to make.”

Foreman lived with his girlfriend of 10 years, Laura Morgan, at a mobile home in Rathdrum.

Wyatt was with Morgan at the home when deputies arrived about 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

The two had been worrying about Foreman, Wyatt said. Morgan “had been trying to find him all day,” she said.

Wyatt said neither knows the woman who stabbed Foreman.

Foreman “had a very kind of heart” and “was always a gentleman,” Wyatt said. “Anybody that you talk to will always tell you he was always ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘No, ma’am.’ “

Wyatt met Foreman through her boyfriend, who she said had known Foreman since they were teens.

Foreman moved back to North Idaho from Southern Idaho about four years ago, Wyatt said.

Foreman gave himself the nickname Kavika, Wyatt said, because he said there were too many Daves in the world. “It was his stage name,” Wyatt said.

“Attached at the hip” to a dog he called Little Miss Patch, Foreman enjoyed karaoke and often sang country songs at the Eagles lodge, Wyatt said.

He served on the club’s entertainment committee and was described by club secretary Glen Abbott as “a good social member.”

“I don’t have anything I can say that’s derogatory about him,” Abbott said.

Foreman’s last criminal conviction came in early 2007, when he was found guilty of drunken driving.

In a Dec. 4 letter to Magistrate Judge Scott Wayman, Foreman described his injury and said it kept him from completing required community service.

“The workman’s Comp. doctor’s can’t seem to find anything wrong with me yet I can be walking along and fall flat on my face,” he wrote. “… I can’t walk very far, I can’t stand very long.”

Foreman also wrote that he’d been locked up for years and had spent the past several years trying to get his life in order.

“The way I see it, the world is full of second chances,” he wrote.