Hanes gets life for shooting death

Kim Edmiston held up a crayon drawing of a smiling family for Judge John Luster – a drawing her son had made as a first-grader.

Then she held up a drawing her now 10-year-old son made for his school’s open house this fall. “This is my family,” he wrote beneath the drawing of a mom and three sons, with no dad.

“I don’t have a husband,” a tearful Edmiston told Luster on Monday during the sentencing of her husband’s killer. “Now I’m called a widow. My boys don’t have a father. They’re fatherless.”

Richard E. Hanes was sentenced to life in prison with a 20-year fixed sentence for shooting 40-year-old Eddie Edmiston during the early morning hours on Feb. 6.

Hanes, 31, had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after shooting Edmiston in the thigh and the back of the head after finding him in bed with Hanes’ ex-wife, Carol Mae Hanes. The shooting took place just hours before Richard Hanes was to be sentenced for a June 2003 domestic violence assault on Carol Mae Hanes, mother of his three children. The two men had never met.

Both sides at Monday’s sentencing in 1st District Court in Coeur d’Alene said the Athol murder has left a hole in their families.

Edmiston’s sons said their dad took them hunting and they played baseball together. They rode motorcycles and four-wheelers and learned to rebuild car engines.

The Edmistons were separated at the time of the killing, but Kim Edmiston said they were trying to work through their problems. She told the judge how she started dating Eddie Edmiston when they were 14, had walked with him at her high school graduation and would have celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary this winter.

No matter what, she said, every night Edmiston was at his Post Falls home with his wife and three sons – except for the night he was killed.

Edmiston’s wife, sons, parents and other relatives asked Luster to sentence Hanes to life in prison. Relatives cried on the witness stand as they shared memories and showed pictures. Some had harsh words for Hanes.

“I think the actions of this man are pathetic,” said brother Mike Edmiston. “I hope he gets pummeled repeatedly in prison. I hope another inmate takes a liking to him and thinks he’s pretty.”

He said he hoped Hanes died in prison.

“After shooting an unarmed man in the leg, only a total coward would shoot him in the back of his head as he ran for his life,” said Jerry Edmiston, the victim’s father. He repeatedly referred to Hanes as an “evil, murdering coward.”

Jerry Edmiston said he wanted Hanes to receive a life sentence with 40 years of the sentence fixed. A convict isn’t eligible for parole until the fixed sentence is served.

“Who in this courtroom will be safe when he gets out?” Jerry Edmiston asked.

Hanes’ relatives painted him as a loving father and son who had a drinking problem that intensified as his marriage began to fall apart. They said he was deeply remorseful for his crime and asked the judge to look beyond the single block of time in Hanes’ life when he had taken the life of another.

His uncle, Dennis Welty, said he had talked to Hanes the evening before he shot Edmiston. The two had talked about the hearing scheduled for the next day.

“He was flat-out determined he was going to do the time, get it over with,” Welty said. He said Hanes told him that he wanted to buy some property and was ready to move on. “He had a good outlook that night and something happened.”

Penny Hindberg, a checker at Super 1 Foods, said she first met Hanes when he came through her grocery line. In the weeks before the shooting, she said, the two grew close.

He was at her house until nearly 2 o’clock the morning he shot Edmiston, she testified. The two had been drinking, she said.

She said Hanes has written her more than 200 pages of letters from jail and many of the letters expressed remorse for what he’d done to the Edmiston family.

His mother, Therese Porter, sobbed as she showed the judge a picture of Hanes and his youngest baby sleeping peacefully.

“He isn’t a monster,” she said. She said her son was “a different person” when he drank. She said she wanted him to get help while he’s in prison. “When he comes out, he’d be the son we all knew.”

Hanes was tearful at times, especially when his mother took the stand. Before the judge handed down his sentence, Hanes turned and spoke to the packed courtroom.

“I made a selfish act,” he said. “I took away your father. I took away your son. Your brother. Your uncle. I can never bring him back. I’m sorry.”

Hanes said he has sat in his jail cell and longed for visitors.

“Mail call comes and you hope you get a letter,” he said. “Then I have to think, Where’s your guys’ letters? When do you get that visit? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Luster acknowledged that Hanes might have done some good in his life – a former co-worker testified about how he had helped detain a rapist while working as a security guard at the Spokane Fair and Expo Center. Public Defender John Adams told about the time Hanes had gone into a burning home to try and rescue those trapped inside.

Luster said Hanes may indeed love his children and have done a lot of good for his kids, but the judge said all of that was undone on Feb. 6.

“One thing that is very clear to the court is there’s an awful lot of human waste because of your conduct,” he told Hanes.

Hanes made a conscious decision to drink the night of the murder, Luster said. He also made the decision to take a gun and go to his ex-wife’s home, he said. Under the protection order that was filed after the 2003 assault against his ex-wife, Hanes wasn’t supposed to make contact with her or have possession of a firearm.

In a moment, Luster said, Hanes made a decision that took the fathers away from two families.

The judge’s sentence will run consecutive to a five-year sentence Hanes received for the 2003 assault against his ex-wife. He’ll receive credit for the nearly 300 days he’s already served. The judge also demanded that Hanes receive treatment and counseling while in jail.

After the sentencing, both families declined to comment. The only family member who went in front of the news cameras was Edmiston’s nephew.

He wasn’t happy with the sentence Hanes received.

Unlike his uncle, Hanes “can get his life back in 25 years,” he said.