Coeur d’Alene boy will serve at least 20 years for killing father, brother

A 16-year-old Coeur d’Alene boy was sentenced to at least 20 years in adult prison on Monday for killing his 13-year-old autistic brother in a bloody attack inside a St. Vincent de Paul housing unit two years ago.

Eldon Gale Samuel III was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing his father, an abusive addict. The sentences will be served concurrently.

“Mr. Samuel, you’re going to have to live with the fact you took Jonathan’s life for the rest of your life,” District Court Judge Benjamin Simpson told Samuel.

“You’re going to need treatment for a long time,” the judge said to the teenager, who sat quietly during the hearing, dressed in a navy blazer, khaki slacks and a tie.

Samuel was 14 when he committed the crimes. Witnesses described a violent, dysfunctional family, in which Samuel was the primary caregiver for Jonathan Samuel, and a father who kept a stash of weapons in the house and trained his sons to prepare for zombie attacks. Samuel told detectives his father had fired one shot from a .45 semi-automatic pistol outside the house on the evening of the killings.

“Nobody should have to go through what he went through,” Simpson told the courtroom. “This case has been a tragedy since Eldon was 5 years old.”

But the judge said he also considered Samuel’s risk for future violence, including testimony from mental health experts who said Samuel displayed signs of reactive attachment disorder, likely from parental neglect as a small child, and that if he felt cornered or threatened, he could react violently.

Samuel shot his father once in the stomach, which proved to be the fatal wound. But after his father crawled across the house to Jonathan’s bedroom, where he died, Samuel followed him and shot him three more times – twice in the cheek and once in the temple.

Jonathan was hiding under the bed. After removing the mattress and box springs, Samuel shot his brother repeatedly with the .45 semi-automatic pistol and a 12-gauge pump shotgun, then stabbed him with a knife and hacked him with a machete more than 100 times.

In January, a jury convicted Samuel of first-degree murder in the death of his brother, and second-degree murder in the death of his father.

“I will never forget the evidence,” Simpson said.

It’s hard to imagine the terror that Jonathan must have felt during the last minutes of his life, the judge said.

Samuel has been housed in Kootenai County’s juvenile detention, where he’s been working on earning high school credits and has been recognized by the staff for his good behavior. With regular meals, proper nutrition and exercise, he’s gained 40 pounds. He makes eye contact with other people now, and isn’t the withdrawn teen he was when he first arrived, staff members said.

“I’m not the same person I was two years ago,” Samuel told the judge. “I’ve changed physically, spiritually and emotionally.”

“That’s not an excuse for what I did that night,” Samuel said. “I lost my dad and my brother, Johnny, my own little brother.”

Samuel said he sometimes dreams that both are still alive.

“I only ask for mercy and righteousness,” he told the judge.

Simpson said Samuel will need to be moved to an Idaho Department of Corrections adult facility within 48 hours of Monday afternoon’s sentencing. Simpson said he isn’t comfortable with Samuel continuing to be housed with other juvenile offenders.

A Department of Corrections official testified Monday that the state’s adult prisons don’t have facilities for adolescent inmates that comply with federal regulations for keeping youth out of sight and hearing of adult inmates. The department likely will look into options for housing Samuel in another state with appropriate facilities for violent adolescent offenders, said Ashley Dowell, deputy chief of prisons.

Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams urged the judge to sentence Samuel to a juvenile facility until he was 19 or 21, and then have the court review his case. At that time, Samuel would receive a sentence for an adult prison term, Adams said.

“This is not a bad kid,” Adams said. “We can look at the circumstances of his life, and we can understand why it happened. He got there because he was a traumatized kid.”

Samuel is more likely to get the mental health treatment and socialization he needs in a juvenile facility, Adams told the court. If Samuel is housed in an adult prison setting, he’ll be isolated, Adams said.

Adams did not respond to a phone call for comment after the sentencing, which can be appealed.

Samuel will receive credit for the two years he’s already spent in jail.

Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Barry McHugh had asked for a sentence of at least 30 years for the shooting of Samuel’s brother, and a sentence of at least 15 years for the shooting of his father.

“Society needs to be protected from Mr. Samuel for a period of time,” McHugh said.

Though Samuel is “a product of his upbringing,” he also committed heinous crimes, McHugh said.

After 20 years, the Department of Corrections will evaluate whether Samuel is a good candidate for parole, or whether his prison term should be extended.

Mental health experts testified at the sentencing about how family trauma would have influenced Samuel. In addition, caring for his autistic brother would have been a heavy burden for a 14-year-old, said Kenneth Mark Derby, a psychologist and Gonzaga University professor. Based on what he read about Jonathan from school reports, Derby said Jonathan’s behavior would have placed a strain on a stable family with outside resources for support.

In the Samuels’ case, “I would have expected that house to be in chaos at all times,” Derby said. “Either Eldon or his father would be on edge 24 hours per day.”

Several mental health experts said Samuel would benefit from therapy. Samuel has been meeting weekly with a licensed social worker to talk about his feelings but hasn’t started therapy.

During the hearing, Samuel’s mother read a tearful letter to Simpson, asking the judge to be lenient. Tina Samuel had left the family before the killings occurred. She expressed remorse over her failings as a parent.

Samuel witnessed his father threatening to kill her on multiple occasions and tried to protect her, she said.

“I would give my life for my son, Eldon III. He’s all I have left,” Tina Samuel told the judge.

“I will never give up on my son,” she said after the hearing.