In brief: Police seek help identifying body
A tattoo is all investigators have to identify a man found shot to death in Grant County last week, and they’re asking for help from anyone who might recognize it.
A resident spotted the body Jan. 19 face down in the dirt off a gravel farm road about 8 miles southeast of Mattawa, a tiny town in the southern part of the county, according to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim was Hispanic, 5-foot-3 and 152 pounds with brown eyes and black hair about a half-inch long, the Sheriff’s Office said. He had a sparse mustache and appeared to be in his late 30s to early 40s. Along with the tattoo on his right bicep, the victim had a mole on the right front of his neck, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective M. Messer at (509) 989-6902 or Detective Ryan Rectenwald (509) 760-5275.
Spokane Valley
Homeowners sue two blamed for fire
The owners of two homes damaged in the Valley View Fire last summer have filed suit against the woman and 16-year-old boy state investigators blame for the blaze.
The lawsuit is the third against Tracy Berg, a surgeon whom the state Department of Natural Resources concluded caused the blaze by allowing the boy to start a fire in a tree stump, which smoldered for days before high winds sparked the 1,000-acre fire July 10 that destroyed 11 homes and cost more than $3 million to fight.
Ryan and Jennifer Van Wey and Douglas and Mary Lou Hawks are seeking unspecified damages, according to the lawsuit filed in Spokane Superior Court on Thursday by lawyers Delian Deltchev and Brad Smith.
Berg told fire officials she’d been using the stump as a fire pit since 1995 and didn’t know it was on undeveloped land owned by Spokane architect Glen Cloninger until after the Valley View fire.
INDIO, Calif.
Duncan arraigned in death of California boy
A man convicted of a deadly attack on an Idaho family has been arraigned on a separate charge of murdering a 10-year-old California boy in 1997.
A Riverside County district attorney’s office spokesman says a not guilty plea was entered Monday for Joseph Edward Duncan III by Judge David B. Downing. Duncan was taken to California on Friday from death row in Indiana to face the charge of killing 10-year-old Anthony Martinez.
Duncan was sentenced to death last year for the kidnapping, torture and murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene, of Coeur d’Alene. Duncan abducted the boy and his younger sister after killing their older brother, mother and her fiance at the family’s home in 2005.
Wallace
Two services planned for Harry Magnuson
Services for Harry F. Magnuson, Silver Valley mining magnate and Inland Northwest philanthropist, will be held Wednesday in Wallace and Thursday in Spokane. Magnuson died Saturday. He was 85.
A vigil service will be held at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Wallace at 5 p.m. Mass of Christian burial will be at 11 a.m. at St. Aloysius Church on the Gonzaga University campus.
FEDERAL WAY, Wash.
Weyerhaeuser cutting two mills, 211 jobs
Forest products supplier Weyerhaeuser Co. will immediately close two mills in southwestern Washington due to weak market conditions, with the loss of 211 jobs, the company announced Monday.
Shutting down permanently are a sawmill and the Pacific Veneer mill, both in Aberdeen. Weyerhaeuser said 196 hourly workers and 25 salaried employees will lose their jobs.
Gov. Chris Gregoire called the shutdown “a sad day in our state.”