15-Year-Old Found Guilty Of Murder Faces At Least 30 Years For Killing Former Spokane Resident Barigar

A 15-year-old boy has become one of the youngest people in Oregon ever to be convicted of aggravated murder after a jury found him guilty in the shooting death of his former foster mother.

Alan Watkins could be sentenced today to a minimum of life in prison, with parole possible after 30 years.

A Benton County jury deliberated eight hours before returning the verdict Wednesday against Watkins, who showed little emotion throughout the trial and looked down as the verdict was read.

Watkins was 14 on April 23, 1996, when he broke into the Corvallis home of Denise Barigar and Steve Trapp, formerly of Spokane.

The couple married in Spokane in 1977. Barigar was a graduate of Eastern Washington University and worked as a nurse at Deaconess Medical Center for nearly 10 years before she and her husband moved to Oregon.

Trapp spent nearly 20 years as a teacher for the Spokane School District, last working at Ridgeview Elementary.

The couple took Watkins in when he was 12 and returned him to the state in 1995.

Police said Watkins escaped a Klamath Falls group home and hitchhiked to Corvallis the night of the slaying.

Barigar, a nursing supervisor at Good Samaritan Hospital, came home and found Watkins with a gun in his hand, police said.

Defense attorney Gerald Peterson said Watkins did not intend to harm Barigar. After he was arrested, Watkins told police the gun fired accidentally when he dropped it.

Watkins’ actions after the shooting revealed “a 14-year-old who didn’t have a clue,” Peterson told the jury.

But Deputy District Attorney Jan Holcomb said it was clear Watkins intended to kill Barigar, who was buried in a Spokane Valley cemetery last April. He waited almost four hours for her to return home.

A firearms expert had testified that the .22-caliber gun had to be cocked and the trigger pulled with each shot Watkins had fired, Holcomb said.

Barigar’s husband found her lying on the floor, shot five times in the chest and stomach.

Watkins was arrested the following day in Sutherlin, Ore., trying to smash a window in Barigar’s sport utility vehicle. He had tried to use her bank card, and in doing so, had locked the keys in the car.

Watkins also had stolen guns, ammunition and camping equipment from Barigar’s home.

After the jury of seven women and five men left the courtroom on Wednesday, Trapp yelled “Yes!” and rushed toward Watkins, swearing. Sheriff’s deputies circled Watkins, and family members ushered Trapp away.

Trapp said later that although Barigar is dead, “at least Alan Watkins will know he cannot go through life denying responsibility.”

, DataTimes