EVERETT — A June trial is scheduled for the only defendant to successfully appeal his conviction and life sentence in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Rachel Burkheimer.
John Alan Whitaker appeared briefly in Snohomish County Superior Court on Thursday for a hearing on the status of his retrial in the 18-year-old’s death.
Lawyers on both sides of the case told Judge Linda Krese they need more time to prepare. Whitaker’s trial was rescheduled from March to June.
The defendant will remain behind bars while awaiting trial. A decade and a half ago, he was part of a group that called itself the “Northwest Mafia.” They specialized in home-invasion robberies of Snohomish County drug dealers and adopted nicknames in an homage to the fictional thugs in Quentin Tarantino’s violent crime thriller “Reservoir Dogs.”
One member of the group, Burkheimer’s jealous ex-boyfriend, John Phillip “Diggy” Anderson, decided she needed to die. He lured her to a south Everett duplex where she was bound and beaten.
Later, she was stuffed into a duffle bag and driven to the hills outside Sultan. Her killers dug a grave. Anderson shot her.
The group’s members turned on each other once detectives began investigating the Marysville teen’s disappearance. Investigators were led to her grave. Most of the eight involved in the crime cut deals, exchanging testimony against co-defendants in exchange for lighter punishment.
Anderson and Whitaker both went to trial and were convicted of aggravated murder. They received life sentences.
Jurors in the earlier trial were told how Whitaker had helped bind Burkheimer, how he’d robbed her and helped dig her grave.
His conviction was upheld on appeal in 2006, but a ruling in a separate case opened the door for him to seek another trial.
During Whitaker’s 2004 trial, the courtroom was briefly closed to spectators while six prospective jurors were questioned individually about their ability to hear evidence in the case. Whitaker’s attorneys successfully argued that breach deprived their client a public trial.
There are challenges in preparing for the new trial, one of Whitaker’s attorneys, Cooper Offenbecher, of Seattle, told the judge. Among other things, it has been difficult arranging interviews with Whitaker’s former associates. Many of them are in prisons around Washington and some have since retained lawyers of their own, he told the judge.
The passage of time also has been a complication, deputy prosecutor Edirin Okoloko said. A forensic scientist who testified in the earlier trials has since died. On Thursday, the prosecutor got the judge’s permission to submit evidence he’d earlier tested to a fresh examination by another expert.
The trial is expected to take up to five weeks.
Scott North: 425-339-3431; north@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snorthnews.
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