In brief: WSU student found dead in friends’ room

A Washington State University student died over the weekend after being found unconscious in a dorm room.

The student, 18-year-old Kenneth D. Hummel, a freshman from Lynwood, Wash., was visiting Stephenson Hall (South) on Saturday when friends discovered him at about 2:30 a.m. The students called 911 and tried to revive him.

Officers continued the CPR efforts until medics arrived.

Hummel was taken to Pullman Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Hummel did not sustain any apparent physical injuries, WSU police Cpl. Matt Kuhrt told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Kuhrt said it is not known if Hummel suffered from an underlying medical condition that may have contributed to his death.

WSU police Assistant Chief Steve Hansen said an autopsy will be performed this morning. Foul play is not suspected.

Hummel was a resident of Olympia Hall.

WSU President Elson Floyd issued a statement Monday that said a campus memorial service is being planned for later this week.

“The loss of a young person seems especially difficult because of what it represents – a loss of possibility, of potential for the future,” Floyd said.

Warrant issued in Priest Lake boat crash

SANDPOINT – An arrest warrant has been issued for a Seattle man charged after three people were injured in a July 4 boat collision on Priest Lake.

The Bonner County Daily Bee reported Magistrate Barbara Buchanan issued the warrant for 38-year-old Todd Frederick Stauber on Friday after he failed to appear in court on a summons.

The case against Stauber is sealed, but Bonner County sheriff’s officials have indicated the investigation involved the negligent operation of a boat.

Preliminary accounts of the crash indicated a ski boat collided with the side of a 31-foot cabin cruiser. Bonner County EMS officials said one person was flown to Kootenai Medical Center with serious head trauma and two others were driven to the hospital.

It was not clear if Stauber was among the injured.

Husband, pregnant wife found dead

MILL CREEK, Wash. – Police in the north Seattle suburb of Mill Creek said a 27-year-old pregnant woman was found dead inside an apartment and her husband died in a car crash after speeding away from their home.

Officer Ian Durkee said police have confirmed that the car was registered to the apartment where the woman’s body was discovered early Monday.

The deceased were not immediately identified.

Durkee said witnesses told detectives the woman called friends Sunday night to come to the apartment, saying her husband was acting strangely and had a loaded shotgun.

Friends said they left after believing they had calmed the situation. Neighbors later called police after hearing what Durkee described as “yelling and sounds of a physical disturbance.” He said the woman suffered a severe head wound.

Man gets 10 years for selling medical pot

MEDFORD, Ore. – A registered medical marijuana grower was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for conspiring to sell his crop illegally and for having machine guns and other illegal firearms.

Jason Michael Scott Nelson, owner of a Grants Pass bike shop, admitted taking advantage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program out of greed and apologized to his family, the judge and the prosecutor for his lies.

“I was out of control,” Nelson said in U.S. District Court, adding that even after his arrest he tried to grow more marijuana and sell it to “keep myself afloat.”

Authorities have said Nelson, 37, was one of four medical marijuana growers from Southwestern Oregon who pooled their harvests and made monthly shipments from Portland to Boston in pods loaded with furniture bought from Goodwill.

Police spotted one of the shipments and traced part of it back to Nelson.

When investigators searched Nelson’s property, they found a room elaborately set up for growing marijuana, mature and immature plants, and another room hidden behind a gun safe that contained 29 heat-sealed packages of trimmed marijuana buds. Investigators also found the illegal firearms and silencers.

Three skiers set off avalanche in Montana

BOZEMAN – Officials with the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center said skiers triggered a snow slide in the Bridger Range north of Bozeman over the weekend that partially buried all three and injured one skier.

The three were ascending a south-facing slope when they triggered the avalanche Sunday. They reported feeling the slope collapse with a “whump” and saw the snow fracture above them.

All three were swept to the bottom of the slope and buried up to their chests.

KTVM-TV reported a 53-year-old man suffered a deep laceration to his knee and a hip injury that prevented him from walking out.

They called Gallatin County Search and Rescue at noon, and the injured skier was taken out on a toboggan by 3:30 p.m.