By Jim Haley
Herald Writer
How much have prospective jurors read or heard about the case of the murdered mail-order bride? How will that affect them if they’re jurors in the murder trial of the bride’s husband, Indle Gifford King Jr.?
Those were the kinds of questions prosecution and defense attorneys posed Thursday to the first 12 of some 80 people who may be sitting on a jury judging King.
King, 40, is charged with first-degree murder in the September 2000 strangulation death of Anastasia King, a 20-year-old mail-order bride from Kyrgyzstan in the former Soviet Union. Her body was found three months later in a shallow grave near Marysville.
The case has attracted a lot of attention in the media, and lawyers need to know how much people in the jury pool might know about the case. They also need to know if those people came to any conclusions.
The jurors were quizzed individually, a process that will likely continue into next week. Lawyers don’t expect a jury to be picked until late next week.
Judge George Bowden said he will pick 15 people to sit on the panel, including three alternates.
Bowden said the lawyers told him this trial could last six or eight weeks.
Nearly all the prospective jurors interviewed Thursday had heard or read something about the case. Most said news reports had not led them to form opinions, and they could fairly listen to evidence and make a decision.
But three were excused for cause because of opinions they had already developed.
Under questioning by chief criminal deputy prosecutor Jim Townsend, one man said, putting himself in King’s place: "If I had someone like me sitting on the jury, I wouldn’t want him on the jury."
He was thanked for his candor and excused.
Earlier in the day, Bowden ruled on admissibility of some of the evidence.
He said the defense is entitled to use some, but not all, of several alleged "bad acts" of Daniel K. Larson, 21, a former tenant of King. Larson has already admitted participating in the murder, and has written at least one letter saying he’s solely responsible.
Defense attorneys David Allen and Cassandra Stamm will seek to discredit Larson’s credibility and imply he was capable of killing Anastasia by himself.
Although Bowden said some recent letters or e-mails by King to other prospective mail-order brides might be proper evidence, he still hasn’t decided if they were seized legally from King’s home in late 2000.
The problem is the letters were not explicitly mentioned in a search warrant signed by a judge, and no second search warrant was obtained once they were spotted.
Those letters are important in establishing a motive for King to kill his wife, and they contain other potentially incriminating information, deputy prosecutor Coleen St. Clair said.
You can call Herald Writer Jim Haley at 425-339-3447 or send e-mail to haley@heraldnet.com.
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