Alleged church group molester turns himself in
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, November 30, 2005
SEATTLE – One of two young men wanted by police for allegedly molesting a young boy while living with an Eastside church group has surrendered to authorities.
Justin Kirkland, 20, a member of the Tridentine Latin Rite Church, was being held Tuesday night held in lieu of $75,000 bail after being booked at the King County Jail in Seattle on Monday morning, nearly a year after he was charged with two counts of first-degree rape of a child.
Police are still looking for Michael W. Muratore, 21, a member of the church who was charged Nov. 18 with first-degree child molestation for crimes against the same victim.
The mother of the now-13-year-old boy, whom Kirkland is accused of molesting over three years beginning when the boy was 8, said she believes recent media coverage about the church pressured its leaders to send Kirkland to authorities. She is not being named to protect the privacy of her son.
King County Journal
Seattle: Man pleads guilty in horse-sex case
A man has pleaded guilty to trespassing in connection with a fatal horse-sex case.
James Michael Tait, 54, of Enumclaw was accused of entering a barn without the owner’s permission. Tait admitted to officers that he entered a neighboring barn in July with friend Kenneth Pinyan to have sex with a horse, charging papers said. Tait was videotaping the episode when Pinyan suffered internal injuries that led to his death.
Tait pleaded guilty Tuesday and was given a one-year suspended sentence, a $300 fine and ordered to perform eight hours of community service and have no contact with the neighbors.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.
Associated Press
Aberdeen: Tsunami sirens coming to coast
Recently approved federal funds are being used to purchase seven new tsunami warning sirens for Grays Harbor and Pacific counties next year.
Two sirens are tentatively scheduled to be installed at Ocean Shores and Long Beach; the Quinault Indian Nation, the Shoalwater Indian Tribe and Surfside will each receive one; Clallam County will receive two sirens; and Port Townsend one.
Pacific County currently doesn’t have any sirens, and Grays Harbor has two – one in Aberdeen and one in Westport. A broken siren in Ocean Shores will be replaced with a new system in January.
“That’s where our major coastal population I, and they have no high ground, so their situation is more of a concern,” said Anne Sullivan, Grays Harbor County emergency and risk manager.
Stephanie Fritts, emergency management coordinator for Pacific County, said the sirens are a major step toward tsunami preparedness.
“It will have a big impact,” she said. “It’ll automate a part of the warning process, which will be wonderful, because right now we have no automated process other than our reliance on NOAA weather radios.”
The Daily World
Tacoma: Mayor’s car allowance hits a pothole
The Tacoma mayor’s Hummer-sized car allowance just got knocked down a bit.
The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to reduce the monthly mayoral car allowance by about $150, dropping it from $701.76 to $550, the same as the city manager’s allowance.
Even though the change will cost Mayor Bill Baarsma about $7,300 at the current rate over the next four years in office, he didn’t object.
“I believe in fiscal discipline,” said Baarsma, who folds his 6-foot-3-inch frame into a 1999 Saturn sedan. “I don’t take a per diem. I buy my own lunch.”
His annual salary is $73,299.
The generous car allowance first came up for discussion more than a year ago as council members looked for ways to trim costs.
Only the mayor and the city manager receive a car allowance.
The News Tribune
North Bend: Skull’s placement a mystery
Who dumped the skull of a Green River killer victim near a logging road off Highway 18 about two miles east of I-90 remains a mystery.
The skull was found 10 days ago by a hiker about 20 miles from where other remains of 19-year-old Tracy Ann Winston were discovered in 1986 in a park next to the Green River in Kent.
Whoever dumped the skull has been asked to contact the King County Sheriff’s Office, because where he or she found it originally could generate key evidence as a dump site used by serial killer Gary Ridgway.
So far, no one has heeded the sheriff’s call.
“We are still hoping someone will come forward,” said Sgt. John Urquhart, a sheriff’s spokesman.
That person isn’t in trouble, officials said. He or she “may contemplate it for a while” before making the call, Urquhart said.
King County Journal
Kelso: Gonorrhea outbreak sweeps county
Cowlitz County is in the midst of a gonorrhea outbreak, with more cases this year than the past two years combined.
The county health department issued alerts Wednesday to all doctors offices and clinics, asking everyone to be on the lookout for cases.
Condoms may be distributed in bars to stop the spread of the sexually transmitted disease, and health officials will ask the state for extra money to pay for antibiotics and for a study of why the county has so many cases.
Officials have known the numbers were increasing for more than a year. In 2004, 51 cases were reported, compared with 17 in 2003. They say the numbers have picked up in the last month.
By Nov. 23, 16 cases had been reported for the month, and that’s expected to grow as the last few November report forms are returned, said Hilary Gillette, the county’s epidemiologist.
In addition, 30 percent of the gonorrhea cases also have chlamydia, while the national co-infection rate is between 10 percent and 15 percent. Most of those infected — 90 percent — are white and live in the Longview-Kelso area. One patient as young as 13 got it this year, as did a senior citizen aged 68, but most are in their 20s and 30s.
Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection spread most often through sexual contact.
The Daily News
Port Townsend: Engine trouble sidelines ferry
The north Olympic Peninsula’s water link to Whidbey Island was severed Tuesday morning when the MV Klickitat was idled by engine trouble.
A similar-size vessel was expected to be brought in from in from the San Juan Islands tyoday.
The problem was discovered while the vessel was en route from Whidbey Island’s Keystone terminal to the Port Townsend dock, Harris said.
The MV Illahee, normally used for the inner San Juan Islands runs, was sent to relieve the Klickitat.
Peninsula Daily News
Port Angeles: Tribe, state in cemetery talks
The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe has requested formal mediation of its lawsuit against the state for reburial of ancestral remains at the former Hood Canal Bridge graving yard.
The state has declined the tribe’s request, saying it will await a review under way by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that counsels the Federal Highway Administration.
The highway administration was the source of most of the $60 million spent at the construction site that covers Tse-whit-zen, an ancient Klallam waterfront village on Port Angeles Harbor.
The advisory council says it backs formal negotiations, however.
To date, meetings about the graving yard have had all parties present.
Should formal talks resolve the issue, the advisory council “stands ready to move forward promptly … to bring closure to the review process,” according to a letter from John Fowler, the council’s executive director.
Peninsula Daily News
Olympia: Donated car stolen, then replaced
A car that was stolen days before a church donated it to an Olympia woman has been recovered, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office reported.
A thief drove off in the 1996 Volkswagen Jetta, which had been parked outside Westwood Baptist Church during the week of Nov. 7. The Jetta was donated to the church and intended for Ruth Bell, who suffers from health problems. After she transferred the title to her name, the car was gone.
On Saturday, police in Yakima found it abandoned in an orchard. The ignition and dashboard were damaged and the battery and stereo were missing.
The good news is that Bell no longer needs a car. Shortly after her story appeared, a Kirkland car dealer gave her a Chevrolet Cavalier, said Kathy Dreisbach, benevolence coordinator at Westwood.
A Seattle family also donated a car after hearing the story, which the church was able to give to another family, she said.
“It’s nice to have met some people who have a lot of generosity in their hearts through this process,” Dreisbach said.
The Olympian
