Man to be retried in murder case

Jason Victor Kukrall pleaded innocent Tuesday to a murder for which he was convicted in 1996.

He faces trial in Spokane County Superior Court on March 21.

Kukrall, 31, pleaded guilty nine years ago to second-degree felony murder in the December 1994 stabbing death of 21-year-old Linda Guillen. Last year, however, the Washington Supreme Court ruled the conviction invalid on grounds that the state’s second-degree felony murder law was defective.

Under the felony murder rule, a defendant may be convicted of murder if a victim dies in the course of some other felony.

The state Supreme Court overturned scores of convictions on grounds that the law, subsequently amended, didn’t specifically list assault as one of the felonies that could lead to murder.

Kukrall said in 1996 that he was present when accomplice Toby R. Stackhouse beat and kicked Guillen, slashed her throat and stabbed her 19 times near the former Playfair horse-racing track.

In a confession he tried unsuccessfully to recant, Stackhouse said both of them battered Guillen before Kukrall tossed Stackhouse a knife and told him to kill Guillen.

This time, Kukrall is charged with first-degree murder in Guillen’s death. Kukrall also is charged again with a first-degree burglary charge that was dismissed in his 1996 plea bargain. He is accused of breaking into Mary J. Foster’s Elk-area home in January 1995.

A Pend Oreille County jury concluded that Kukrall and Stackhouse used guns taken from Foster’s home to murder Fertile Valley homeowner Steve Roscoe in January 1995 when he caught them breaking into his home. Kukrall, who fired the fatal shot, was sentenced to 26 years for that crime – a sentence unaffected by the Supreme Court ruling.

The Pend Oreille County sentence is unaffected by the reversal of Kukrall’s Spokane County murder conviction. Kukrall was to serve his 17-year Spokane County sentence after completing his Pend Oreille County sentence.

Stackhouse is serving 23 years for Roscoe’s murder and 30 for Guillen’s. He is not getting a new trial.