Robbery suspect will stay in jail
A college student police believe robbed at least six pharmacies of OxyContin over the past few months will remain in jail on $400,000 bail, a judge ruled Monday.
Edward A. Saner’s parents asked the court to keep their son’s bail at $15,000 so they could bring him home to western Washington to attend drug rehab, but Spokane District Court Judge Sara Derr granted the prosecution’s bail increase request, citing Saner’s criminal history. That history includes a negligent driving charge that was reduced from a drunken driving charge.
Police arrested Saner, a 23-year-old student at Eastern Washington University, Friday night as he walked out of a south Spokane Rite Aid carrying a bottle of OxyContin pills. They’d watched him hand the pharmacy clerk a note while wearing a hooded sweatshirt and stocking cap, the same way several other robberies occurred.
Police and sheriff’s deputies had been watching the stores since Thursday after a detective determined the serial pharmacy robber would likely hit again Friday, based on the number of pills he’d gotten in his last robbery.
Police saw what appeared to be needle marks on Saner’s right arm from injecting the addictive pain pill.
“If I don’t talk about the stores, can I tell you about my addiction?” Saner asked police, according to court papers filed Monday.
Pullman
WSU chooses head of wine program
Thomas Henick-Kling, an international leader in wine research and education, is the new director of Washington State University’s viticulture and enology program.
Henick-Kling currently is director of the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre at Charles Sturt University in Australia.
Prior to that he worked at Cornell University for 20 years, helping establish Cornell’s undergraduate program in enology and viticulture.
He will assume his new responsibilities in March 2009.
Port Orchard, Wash.
Artist tattoos prosthetic limbs
A Port Orchard man has started a business offering tattoos for artificial arms and legs.
Dan Horkey lost a leg in a 1985 motorcycle accident and has decorated his prosthesis with fiery orange and yellow flames similar to art that might be found on hot rod cars. He uses the same techniques in his business, Global Tattoo Orthotic Prosthetic Innovations.
Horkey told the Kitsap Sun he wants to bring color to the lives of soldiers, diabetics or accident victims who have lost limbs. He says he can produce any art or design the clients can imagine.
Auburn, Wash.
Abandoned baby now with father
The baby girl who was abandoned at a Federal Way church is now with her father.
Clark Stevens was training with his National Guard unit in Wisconsin last week when he was called home to Auburn because he had a daughter.
Stevens says he didn’t even know his ex-girlfriend was pregnant. Now he has bonded with his daughter, Mariah Verle Stevens.
Nurses at a Tacoma hospital called her Autumn Doe after she was found Sept. 28 at Steel Lake Presbyterian church in Federal Way.
The mother later turned herself in to police and said she thought she had done the right thing.
Stevens has custody of Mariah who will be cared for by his mother. He will be deployed the next 10 months in Iraq.