Officials: Enlarged heart killed Bonner County inmate

A Bonner County Jail inmate who died last month suffered from an enlarged heart, an autopsy ruled. Ward David Coble, 50, was found dead in his cell June 18. The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled the death to be from dilated cardiomyopathy, the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office said today. That means his heart was weakened and enlarged and couldn’t pump blood properly. Toxicology reports showed no drugs in Coble’s system, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Coble, who was from Spokane but lived in Blanchard, was in jail on a charge of eluding police, according to court records. Coble was also awaiting trial on a domestic violence charge and had a federal warrant in Eastern Washington for violating his probation on a 1990 weapons conviction. That conviction earned him a 15-year prison sentence as an “armed career criminal” because of seven past felony convictions, included armed robberies of grocery stores, according to previously published reports. He unsuccessfully appealed that sentence to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and was released in 2005.