4 Accused Of Plotting To Kill Couple Grudge Led To Killings, Prosecutors Say
The plan was two weeks in the making.
The teenagers’ idea was to break into the Quincy, Wash., home of Homer and Vada Smithson, ages 89 and 88, steal the couple’s guns, then kill them, authorities say.
In the end, they didn’t steal the guns.
But two of the suspects, ages 15 and 16, did kill the Smithsons, prosecutors said Thursday. A third boy, 15, was charged with helping by standing guard outside the couple’s rural home during the murders early Wednesday. A 15-year-old girl who was not at the crime scene was charged with taking part in the original conspiracy.
Prompting the whole plan, said Prosecuting Attorney John Knodell, was a grudge with Homer Smithson over some past employment and because he had told some of the kids to stop swimming in a nearby irrigation ditch.
“Such is the state of juvenile crime in Grant County,” Knodell said.
Knodell charged Adam Bentancourt, 16, with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Because of his age, he will automatically stand trial as an adult and face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Donald Eugene Lambert, 15, was also charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder.
Marcus David Wawers, 15, was charged with two counts of complicity to commit aggravated murder. Melanie S. Hinkle, also 15, was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and one count of conspiracy to commit burglary in the first degree.
Lambert and Bentancourt acknowledged entering the Smithson residence planning to steal guns and kill the couple, the affidavit says. Wawers admitted standing lookout.
Bentancourt is scheduled to face formal charges Tuesday. A hearing on whether the others will be tried as adults is scheduled for June 3.
Grant County Superior Court Judge Ken Jorgensen ordered all four held in lieu of $1 million bail.
Lambert has a juvenile record going back to 1994, when he was convicted of first-degree child molestation and third-degree theft in Snohomish County as a 12-year-old.
Earlier this year, he was convicted of third-degree malicious mischief, said Greg Grammer, Grant County juvenile court administrator. Lambert also failed to appear for an April 24 sentencing hearing for a resisting arrest conviction.
The other three do not have juvenile records, Grammer said.
The boys were being counseled for attendance problems at Quincy High School, said district Superintendent Mike Sowder. Hinkle had not attended school since last year, when she was in the middle school, he said.
Students interviewed outside the high school Thursday morning did not know Hinkle, but described Lambert and Bentancourt as trouble-makers who rarely attended classes and often skipped out at lunch to smoke marijuana.
Lambert, said Donna Potter, a freshman who knew him from English class, “bragged about killing animals and stuff like that.”
Students described Wawers as a follower. But Chester Bews, a friend and neighbor of the Smithsons, called Wawers a “regular little outlaw.” Bews said Wawers was among three youths who broke into his home this winter and made off with three pistols, two shotguns, a .22-caliber rifle and a television set.
Bews, 84, said there have been several burglaries along his road “and the deputies never caught one of them yet. They don’t seem to want to catch them guys.”
Bryan Pratt, Grant County chief criminal sheriff’s deputy, confirmed that after Bews’ house was burglarized, deputies followed tracks in the snow to Wawers’ house about half a mile away. None of the stolen property was recovered in a search of the home and no one was charged, Pratt said.
Bews said Wawers worked for both him and the Smithsons, fixing Bews’ television, pulling weeds for Smithson.
The Smithson residence, a small natural-wood home sheltered by willows, sits about a half-mile down a dirt road from Wawers’ in the heart of the Columbia Basin’s checkerboard pattern of irrigation ditches and gridded roads named for letters and numbers.
The Smithsons, who had just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, raised cattle, alfalfa and corn, but also kept the spread as habitat for birds and other wildlife.
Area resident Robert Ren recalled Homer Smithson inviting him and his young daughter out several years ago to fish in his private trout pond.
“He was just in the height of his glory to see that little girl out there fishing,” Ren said.
“There were a lot of kids that fished in that pond,” said Irv Howe, a mechanic for the nearby Hammond Farms. “A lot with permission and a lot without. They (the Smithsons) were just nice people.”
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Lambert, Bentancourt and Wawers made their way on foot to the Smithson home sometime before 2 a.m. Wednesday.
While Wawers stood guard outside, Bentancourt and Lambert shot both Smithsons “multiple times” with a .22 caliber rifle. Just how many times they were shot has not yet been determined, Deputy Pratt said.
At one point, Vada Smithson phoned her son Albert in Peshastin west of Wenatchee and, “speaking in a frantic tone of voice,” said she needed him right away, the affidavit said. Before she could explain, her son heard her scream and the line went dead.
Deputies found Vada Smithson dead at the scene. A wounded and delirious Homer Smithson was taken by ambulance to Quincy Valley Hospital. He died after being airlifted to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.
Investigators at the scene found several distinct footprints in a flower bed and traced them - Pratt would not say how - to shoes found about five hours later at the Wawers home. Wawers’ mother, Lucy Moss Wawers, said Bentancourt and Lambert had spent the night at the residence and let deputies search the home. They found a .22-caliber rifle and .22-caliber revolver outside the cabinet where she said they are normally kept, the affidavit said.
The three boys were arrested at the house.
Later, Hinkle told deputies of the plan to steal the Smithsons’ collection of more than 10 guns, Pratt said. According to the affidavit, Hinkle said they planned to then shoot at a deputy’s home.<
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