Spokane fugitive arrested in killing

A mentally ill felon from Spokane who has a history of threatening violence and escaping custody was arrested Tuesday in connection with the June killing of a Lake Stevens, Wash., woman, who was found bound with electrical cords and stabbed to death.

Based on a DNA match linking him to the electrical cords, Snohomish County detectives have charged Anthony E. Garver, 25, with first-degree murder in connection with the slaying of 20-year-old Phillipa S. Evans-Lopez, who was discovered dead June 17 inside her home.

Garver, who was a fugitive wanted on state and federal warrants for escape, was taken into custody without incident Tuesday night at the same McDonald’s restaurant where he was seen on surveillance video dining with Evans-Lopez on June 14, according to details first reported by the Everett Herald.

Garver was convicted in 2006 of threatening to blow up a Department of Social and Health Services office in north Spokane. He also threatened to kill both the judge and prosecutor in the case. When he was released in 2009, he failed to show up for a required work-release program and became the subject of a monthlong manhunt that ended when federal agents found him hiding in the woods near Mount Spokane.

Then in March 2010, Garver left a halfway house and fled; he was apprehended following a police pursuit in Montana in which Garver drove a stolen car the wrong way on Interstate 90 and appeared to try to crash into oncoming motorists.

According to court records, Garver – who is also known as Anthony E. Burke – was released earlier this year from a federal prison in Colorado and transported to Western Washington, where he failed to check in with his probation officer and again became a fugitive.

The affidavit filed by police in the death of Evans-Lopez says Garver is “anti-government, has history of military style weapons and explosives, and he has threatened to shoot anyone who confronts him.” One of his previous convictions stemmed from the discovery of 100 rounds of Russian-made ammunition in his Spokane home.

The affidavit also says Garver smiled when confronted with a blood-stained knife police found on him when he was arrested, then denied killing Evans-Lopez.