Teen suspects in beating may face adult trials

Prosecutors will seek adult charges against two teenagers accused of beating a man so badly his dentures broke.

The suspects, Nicholas X. Parrish and Justin A. Summa, appeared in Spokane County Superior Court on Wednesday on one charge each of first-degree assault.

A judge set Parrish’s bail at $100,000 and Summa’s at $75,000.

“We have some pretty horrific charges here,” Judge Ellen Kalama Clark said.

Both boys turned 17 in October.

They will be housed in the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center. The victim, Kent S. Moses, 60, was found unconscious and bloody in an alley near Bridge Avenue and Nettleton Street in west Spokane about 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

His upper dentures and three ribs were broken. A shoe print on his fractured face matched shoes worn by Parrish at the time of his arrest, according to court documents. Moses was listed in serious condition Wednesday at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Moses, who police say was wearing slippers, lives just southwest of the alley, according to court documents.

Police say they don’t have a motive for the beating.

A friend of the boys said they’d been drinking at his apartment near the alley but were kicked out “because they became belligerent,” according to court documents. Moses was beaten soon after that, prosecutors allege.

Parrish told police that “he had stomped on the ‘old guy’s head,’ ” according to court documents, but that he was too drunk to remember anything more. Police say Summa told them he’d hit Moses in the lower ribs.

Summa’s girlfriend told detectives that Parrish was the assailant and that Summa had tried to stop him. She also said Parrish had returned to the alley to rifle through Moses’ pockets and beat him again, according to court documents. Parrish denied this, police said.

In court Wednesday, Summa’s mother, Linda Wakefield, described him as a “good kid who got in with the wrong crowd.”

“This is unlike my son,” Wakefield said.