Trial Opens In Hillyard Teen Deaths Gunshots Were Described As Both Meant To Kill, Only To Scare Away

Kenneth Comeslast loaded an assault rifle he called “baby” with hollow-point bullets, pulled a hood over his head and sneaked into the darkness of a Hillyard neighborhood last summer, witnesses said.

Minutes later, they heard gunshots, girls screaming and Comeslast’s voice.

“Sixty-second East Coast Crips!” the teenager was heard yelling.

A security camera on a nearby garage recorded sounds of the assault, including the five gunshots prosecutors say Comeslast fired at a group of teenagers sitting on a front porch.

Killed were Kendra Grantham, 16, and Cindy Buffin, 17. Thirteen-year-old Amanda Denny, who lives at the house at 2928 East Central, recovered from a gunshot wound in her side. A fourth girl was not injured.

“He shot to kill,” Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser told a jury Tuesday. “He wanted to show he had the courage to use a powerful weapon on human beings.”

Opening statements in the double-murder trial began with Sweetser saying Comeslast had to prove himself - through violence - in order to gain respect in his Crips gang.

The 16-year-old toted around the high-powered assault rifle, “got pumped up” shooting it and decided to take revenge on rival gang members who frequent the Hillyard home where the shootings took place, Sweetser said.

“He called the (hollow points) his special gold bullets,” Sweetser said. “They were special because if they hit somebody they’d really tear them up.”

Comeslast’s defense attorneys, however, said the shooting was an attempt to scare the youths at the house, not hurt them. The attorneys did not acknowledge that Comeslast was the shooter.

Assistant Public Defender Jay Ames said the assault rifle had not been functioning properly and promised evidence that the killings were accidental.

“Maybe Mr. Comeslast does have some gang affiliations,” Ames said in his opening statement. “But there was little or no talk of gang retaliation on the night of the shooting … There was no talk of killing anyone or hurting anyone.”

Comeslast, who was 15 when the Aug. 9 shootings occurred, is being tried as an adult.

Known as “Junior,” he is charged with two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of attempted murder. If convicted as charged, he faces life in prison without parole. State law prohibits the death penalty for people younger than 18.

Wearing a striped dress shirt and pants, Comeslast rocked softly in his chair while Sweetser pointed at him and called him a killer.

He said Comeslast climbed back into his friend’s car after the shooting and announced excitedly, “I think I got someone, I don’t know.”

Two of the four friends in the car with Comeslast testified Tuesday, telling jurors they drove by Denny’s house once before the shooting.

Comeslast then asked the driver, Doug Champagne, to take him home so he could get “the bullets he used for special occasions,” said Adawn Joplin, 16. They returned to the neighborhood a short time later, she said.

Joplin told the eight-man, four-woman Superior Court jury she thought Comeslast was angry with the people at Denny’s house because “they were in a Blood gang.”

She did not expect Comeslast to shoot anyone, she said.

In exchange for their testimony Tuesday against Comeslast, Joplin and another girl, Amy Allen, were not charged in the shooting.

Champagne and Chris McIlveen are being charged with rendering criminal assistance but will testify for the prosecution, Sweetser said. They helped Comeslast hide the murder weapon, police said.

The boys all knew the victims because Comeslast used to date Denny, Sweetser said. The two broke up several months before the shooting, at least in part because Comeslast did not get along with her brother, he said.

At the time of the break-up, Comeslast held a gun to Denny’s head and threatened to kill her, Sweetser said.

“He said, ‘… You’re gonna end up like your brother, dead.”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo