Wells brothers plead not guilty

COLFAX – Two suspects in the murder of a University of Idaho football player were in Whitman County Superior Court this week, pleading not guilty to felony charges stemming from the high-speed chase that took place after the UI student was shot.

On Thursday, James J. Wells, a 25-year-old from Seattle, pleaded not guilty to being an accessory to felony eluding of police officers. Prosecutors say he was a passenger in the white BMW that officers pursued 150 miles across Eastern Washington after the shooting of 19-year-old UI sophomore Eric McMillan in Moscow, Idaho.

Then on Friday morning, Wells’ older brother Matthew, 27, appeared before the same judge and made the same plea to charges that, as driver of the BMW, he attempted to elude police.

The two men face first-degree murder charges in Idaho.

Facing only the judge and not checking on his family in the back of the courtroom, Matthew Wells made his plea quickly and clearly during the brief hearing Friday.

Both Matthew Wells and his brother seem to be upstanding kids, said Matthew Wells’ attorney, Steve Martonick, after the hearing. He said his client worked in Seattle as a personal trainer and his brother was a high school football coach. They are both active in their church and both went to college in Missouri, he said.

Martonick said he has asked the Wells family, including their parents who were in Colfax Thursday and Friday, to put together information that would give the Moscow and Pullman communities more detail about the two men to show how incongruous the charges against them are.

While the men have no apparent ties to Moscow and Pullman, residents of the two college towns do know that witnesses heard gunshots and saw two men matching the Wellses’ descriptions flee from the area of McMillan’s Moscow apartment Sept. 19. McMillan was shot in the chest while standing in his doorway and died later at the hospital. Witnesses called the police to report the shooting and provided descriptions matching the men and their white 1993 BMW.

Deputies in Whitman County spotted the car north of Pullman and tried to pull it over. The BMW headed west onto State Route 270 and led officers on a lengthy chase to Interstate 90 at Vantage where the car hit a spike strip, which deflated its tires.

Now James and Matthew Wells are scheduled in Washington for separate trials on Nov. 15 and 17 on charges of eluding police. Once those trials are complete, they will be transferred on a warrant to Latah County to face first-degree murder charges.

Whitman County Prosecutor Denis Tracy said he plans to file a motion to try the brothers together. Having just one trial will conserve resources, he said. And for both men, the evidence is exactly the same, he said.

One part of the evidence that may weigh into the accomplice charge against James Wells is that he was seen by officers throwing things from the car during the pursuit. “It just helps prove that he was an accomplice,” and not an unwilling passenger, said Tracy.

The Wellses’ separate attorneys said they will fight the motion for a joint trial.

With more than a month before the Whitman County trials, investigators in Latah County have some extra time to put together their murder case. A grand jury has been convened at the Latah County courthouse, though officials won’t say whether the focus is the McMillan murder.

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson did say that in the three weeks since the shooting, detectives have managed to gather more details about the crime and about the actions of the brothers in town.

“And new information is continuing to come in, so we’re moving forward,” he said.

Investigators have an idea who may have fired the gun and what role each of the men played in the crime, and “we certainly have a good theory as to what happened in Eric McMillan’s apartment,” he said.

Thompson would not be more specific, saying that the investigation was ongoing and that the specific details might not come out before the Idaho trial.

The BMW has been moved from Washington to Idaho, where investigators have examined it for evidence. So far, police haven’t found the gun used in the shooting, said Thompson.

The brothers remain in Whitman County Jail, where they’re housed in separate units. Tracy said he hopes to have their Washington proceedings concluded before Thanksgiving.