Bonnie Harris

An already stalled hearing to determine whether accused killer Barry Loukaitis should be tried as an adult may have to start over, now that lawyers on both sides want a new judge. "We'll be back to square one," Grant County Deputy Prosecutor Robert Schiffner said Wednesday. Loukaitis, 15, is accused of killing two classmates and a teacher during a Feb. 2 rampage at his school in Moses Lake.

1. Esparza 2. Lanphier

Mark Kelley raped a 15-year-old girl and held her hostage during a standoff with police last year, a Spokane County jury decided Wednesday. After more than eight hours, jurors rejected Kelley's defense that he had consensual sex with the girl and never forced her to stay barricaded with him at her North Side home. He was found guilty of first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault. All three charges will carry at least five additional years in prison because a weapon was involved.

The daughters of a Spokane construction worker who fell to his death from the Maple Street Bridge have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and state, as well as his company. The lawsuit accuses government officials of allowing the 1993 resurfacing project to continue despite an earlier near-fatal accident and ongoing safety violations. It also accuses the contractor, David A. Mowat Co. of Kirkland, Wash., of having substandard safety practices.

A Spokane man on trial for holding a teenager hostage during a six-hour standoff with police said Monday the girl was "very much free to go" and chose instead to stay barricaded with him inside her North Side home. Mark Kelley, 32, told a Spokane County Superior Court jury he had consensual sex with the 15-year-old girl early Dec. 3, after partying with her the night before.

Chuck Naccarato enjoys the company of Judge James Murphy during court. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Blake Pirtle arrives in court in Spokane on Thursday. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Safety shortcuts by the owner of a fast-food restaurant may have contributed to the murders of two young employees there in 1992, a Superior Court judge ruled. The decision allows the victims' families to move ahead with a wrongful-death lawsuit against Ed Hatter, who owns the Burger King on Argonne Road in the Spokane Valley. The lawsuit claims Hatter took "unreasonable risks" in employee safety at the restaurant, where convicted killer Blake Pirtle used to work.