Man pleads guilty to killing woman in 2011, days after prison release

A 28-year-old man faces 30 years in prison for killing a 48-year-old woman in August 2011 just days after his release from federal prison on unrelated child sex charges.

Derrick Ross Vargas pleaded guilty Friday to murdering Evon M. Moore, whose body was found in a Spokane alley Aug. 13, 2011. She had been choked and then run over by a pickup, according to an autopsy. Investigators began to focus on Vargas after another woman claimed she was choked and raped by him in September 2011.

Vargas’ truck, a red 1995 Chevy, matched a suspect vehicle captured on surveillance footage near the location of Moore’s body.

He also pleaded guilty to assault with sexual motivation in the other case. The victim said she stabbed Vargas at his apartment on Trent Avenue after he choked her while raping her, according to court documents.

Both Moore and the assault victim were working as prostitutes when Vargas attacked them, according to court records.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to a deal that will send Vargas to prison for 24 years in Moore’s death and about six years for the assault. Prosecutor Eugene Cruz said he would not classify the assault case as Vargas’ second sexual offense following his earlier conviction of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl on the Colville Indian Reservation. Such a classification would have pinned Vargas as a persistent offender and enabled a lengthier prison sentence.

Kari Reardon, Vargas’ defense attorney, said she hopes he will receive treatment while incarcerated.

“I think the outcome we reached is very fair,” she said.

Moore’s daughter Tarah Krivenko was attending Spokane Community College with her mother at the time of the murder. The school has set up a foundation in her mother’s name, she said. Krivenko has since moved to Colorado but returned to Spokane for Vargas’ guilty plea Friday.

“His old case, for the feds, he never registered as a sex offender,” Krivenko said Tuesday. “They didn’t do their due diligence.”

Vargas was set for trial on the two cases in June, and a judge had ordered he be shackled for the length of the proceedings because a written escape plan had been found in his Spokane County Jail cell.

Krivenko described her mother as a suburban soccer mom who had developed a destructive drug addiction and made friends with the wrong people. She said she’s disappointed by the length of time Vargas will have to serve, but she’s glad that there will not be a chance for him to appeal a jury’s verdict. She plans to attend parole hearings in his case, if there are any.

“I will be there every time, with a list of his priors,” she said.

Sentencing in the case has been scheduled for June. Vargas will remain in the Spokane County Jail until then.