In brief: Neighbors allege baiting plot in teen’s death in Missoula
MISSOULA – Neighbors of the Montana man who fatally shot a German exchange student testified that the man’s girlfriend told them they planned to bait intruders to catch them in their garage.
Jessica Bracey said she spoke with Markus Kaarma’s girlfriend, Janelle Pflager, days before the April 27 shooting. She said she was certain Pflager used the word “bait” to describe plans to catch burglars on the couple’s property.
Bracey and other neighbors testified Tuesday as prosecutors attempt to show a trap had been set for anyone who tried to burglarize Kaarma’s garage before he shot and killed 17-year-old Diren Dede in the garage.
Kaarma is charged with deliberate homicide in Dede’s death. His attorneys say Montana law allowed him to use deadly force to defend his home.
Company logged extra acre in Oso
SEATTLE – A state review of logging near the deadly March landslide in Oso has found that a timber company logged one acre more than was allowed under a 2004 permit, but the report was inconclusive on whether logging strayed into a more restrictive area.
The state Department of Natural Resources released its review Tuesday, nine months after the deadliest landslide in U.S. history killed 43 people and devastated a community about 60 miles northeast of Seattle.
In the aftermath of the disaster, questions were raised about logging in a seven-acre area at the top of the slope nearly a decade earlier.
The state review focused on regulatory requirements and decisions to grant applications for logging within a mile of the landslide over the past decade.
Video shows shooter’s interview
SEATTLE – The gunman who opened fire at Seattle Pacific University in June, killing one student and wounding two others, told police after his arrest that he had given up on counseling because he couldn’t afford the cost.
Seattle police on Tuesday released a video of an interview with Aaron Ybarra, 26. In it, he describes struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder since he was 13 and said things got worse after his parents changed his bedroom furniture. He said he started feeling “nothing but hate.” Ybarra has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, and his lawyer has said mental illness was a factor in the shooting.