Guilty verdict reached in woman’s killing

No family or friends came to witness justice Thursday for murder victim Diana Dee Wideman.

The 41-year-old mentally ill woman lived alone in a downtown Spokane apartment, and in 2001 she met a brutally violent death.

The initial investigation identified one suspect, Theodore F. Stewart, but detectives were unable to find enough evidence to charge him. Two detectives retired; the case languished. Then a few years ago, Detective Minde Connelly took another look.

Based largely on her work, a jury on Thursday convicted Stewart, 26, of first-degree murder for Wideman’s death more than five years after she was found raped, bludgeoned and choked, with her throat slashed from ear to ear.

“It shows that we never give up on any homicide,” Spokane police Sgt. Joe Peterson said. “Even though there are no leads and the trail is cold, we continue to look at these cases and try to solve them for the victims.”

Early DNA tests linked Stewart to the crime scene, but he told former detectives only that he entered Wideman’s apartment at 123 N. Bernard St., found her dead and then smoked some of her cigarettes.

Investigators also tested DNA from the rape evidence but it came back negative for Stewart. The case ground to a halt for most of three years until investigators compared the DNA to the state’s felony DNA database.

It came back as a hit on Raymond Nelson III, whose name had not previously come up during the investigation.

Detectives Connelly and Brian Hamond then traveled to the state prison at McNeil Island in June 2004 and Nelson not only implicated himself, but Stewart as well. Faced with Nelson’s statement, Stewart confessed in a 31-minute taped interview, Deputy Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz said.

A different jury deliberated 90 minutes on Dec. 20 before convicting Nelson of first-degree murder for killing Wideman.

In the Stewart case, jurors deliberated part of Wednesday and Thursday before finding Stewart guilty of both premeditated first-degree murder and felony first-degree murder, although prison sentences for both convictions will run together.

With a weapons enhancement, Stewart is facing a maximum of about 30 years in prison at his May 19 sentencing, assistant public defender Steve Reich said.

“The jury was out for a long time so I give them credit for giving it a good consideration,” Reich said. “It must have been a close issue at some point.”

He explained that the jury asked at 10 a.m. Thursday to again view the video confession that Stewart gave in June 2004. Reich unsuccessfully asked Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke to deny the request.

“I argued to the judge that it put too much emphasis on that one period of time,” Reich said. “Maybe that (video) was important to one or more jurors.”

Stewart claimed that he hasn’t been the same since he suffered severe head trauma during an assault when he was 17. Someone hit Stewart in the head with a brick and put him into a coma for two or three weeks, Reich said.

Despite making several outbursts during the trial, Stewart said nothing other than accusing Detective Tim Madsen of threatening his life during an unrelated 1998 investigation.

Although Wideman lived a quiet life in which she couldn’t provide for her own daily needs, her death investigation got the same treatment had she been the daughter of royalty, Peterson said.

“It was a persistent, dogged investigation by Hamond and Connelly,” Peterson said. “I cannot play up enough their perseverance.”