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.

It's not the best time for Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Sweetser to be asking for more money. His office has been under fire since judges said a prosecutor's errors forced them to dismiss two separate rape cases over the past few months. In one case, the charges were reinstated, but the public relations damage had been done. While Sweetser denies his office bungled the cases, he warns that more charges will be dismissed if his overworked prosecutors don't get some relief.

Criminal charges against accused rapist Mark Kelley were reinstated Wednesday by the same Spokane County Superior Court judge who dismissed the case last month. Saying he didn't have all the facts before dropping the charges on June 10, Judge Paul Bastine called his earlier ruling premature. He ordered prosecutors to proceed with all five counts against Kelley, 31. "A review of the complete record indicates that much more had occurred on this matter than was provided to (me)," Bastine said. "It is ordered that this matter...proceed to trial."

Koralee Dixon had two killers, a Spokane County jury decided Wednesday. Marcella Taylor and Willie Richardson were found guilty of first-degree murder after less than four hours of deliberations. The former couple blamed each other for Dixon's killing throughout the week-long Superior Court trial. Richardson said Taylor applied the duct tape to the victim's mouth that caused her to choke on a bandanna, while the petite Taylor insisted she is physically unable to hold a victim captive and dump her body in a lake alone.

While a jury sized her up, Marcella Taylor locked round, sad eyes on her defense attorney. Taylor, 23, is accused of robbing and killing her Spokane roommate last summer, stuffing the body in a clothes hamper and dumping it in a Stevens County lake.

Jose Mendoza was acting in self-defense when he fired 10 bullets at a carload of teenagers in the Spokane Valley last summer, his lawyer told a jury Wednesday. Mendoza, 21, didn't know the three victims who were hit by bullets from his 9mm handgun. He pulled the trigger because he was convinced one of the youths in the car would shoot him first, said defense attorney Greg Sypolt. "Based upon everything Jose Mendoza knew, and based upon everything Jose Mendoza saw that evening, he was justifiably using his right to defend himself," Sypolt said.

Koralee Dixon didn't know her new roommate very well. Prosecutors say that lack of knowledge killed her. It happened one night last summer, when Dixon took a long bath, said goodnight to roommate Marcella Taylor and went to bed. Hours later, her thin, nude body was sinking to the bottom of a Stevens County lake.

For the first time in 20 years, secrets of the Secret Witness program are at risk of being revealed. A defense attorney wants to see anonymous called-in tips about a double murder his client, Joseph "JoJo" Andrews, is accused of committing in 1994.

Felice in 1984

At first, Amanda Denny thought her brother was playing a trick on her. The popping sounds were firecrackers he'd lighted to scare her on the front porch, she thought. Then the bodies of her friends fell around her. "I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die,"' Denny said in court Wednesday. "I dove to the ground. ... A bullet skimmed my left side."

Kenneth Comeslast is led to the courtroom Tuesday. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Haight

Marcus Kelly wanted only to be remembered as fair. Nearly 300 people did just that Friday, during a funeral service for the former Spokane County Superior Court judge. Kelly, 65, died last week after battling cancer for several years. He served 21 years on the bench, earning a reputation as a tough jurist before retiring late last year.

Woods

Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of Kenneth Comeslast, a teenager accused of fatally shooting two girls and wounding another as they sat on the front porch of a northeast Spokane home last summer. More than 75 potential jurors were called to Superior Court for the process, which Judge Kathleen O'Connor expects to last through Friday. Comeslast, 16, is charged with two counts of aggravated murder in the deaths of Kendra Grantham, 16, and Cindy Buffin, 17.

1. Kevin Boot, left, as he looked shortly after he was arrested and charged with the murder of Felicia Reese. 2. Boot is pictured, right, being led into the courtroom at the beginning of the trial. 3. Tobias Stackhouse shows his newly neat hair at his murder trial early this year. 4. At right is Stackhouse with his original haircut a month earlier. 5 & 6. Todd Neighbors shaved his beard, left, for his court appearance, at right.

A Spokane developer whose company recently filed for bankruptcy is suing the city for several million dollars for reneging on a real estate deal. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Superior Court, says city officials "willfully and intentionally breached their agreements" with Lamont Glines, who planned this year to add 20 home lots to Qualchan Hills in southwest Spokane. At issue is the subdivision's water supply, which building officials say is inadequate. To cover the cost of a new water tank, Glines posted a $190,000 bond and agreed to have the new tank built by 1997.