By Scott North and Jim Haley
Herald Writers
It was a day for bizarre images.
In a Snohomish County courtroom Wednesday, jurors spent the morning listening to a vivid description of how a distressed Indle Gifford King Jr. jumped out of bed wearing just shorts and a T-shirt to chase his mail-order bride through the streets of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
In the afternoon, jurors watched nearly an hour of videotape that Indle King, 40, had shot of his wife, Anastasia King, 20, dancing alone at a discotheque in her hometown. The tape featured repeated close-up views of the young woman’s body parts.
Indle King, of Mountlake Terrace, is charged with first-degree murder in the September 2000 death of his wife.
Jurors have been told Anastasia King was last seen alive in the company of her husband on the day the couple returned from a visit to her parents home in the former Soviet Union. Her body was found months later in a shallow grave near Marysville.
Indle King has pleaded innocent and maintains he is being framed by the real killer, a convicted child molester who had rented a room in the King home. Daniel K. Larson, 21, has confessed to strangling Anastasia King, but maintains he did so under orders of Indle King.
Prosecutors maintain Indle King wanted his wife dead because he was jealous and angry at the younger woman, who had made it clear she was soon going to end their marriage.
Anastasia King’s father, Anatoliy Soloviev, told jurors that his daughter’s final visits home were marred by tensions between the couple. A visit in July 2000 ended with Indle King storming out of the house early one morning, carrying Anastasia King’s passport and documents she needed to return to their home in the United States, Soloviev testified.
The man said he tried to restrain his son-in-law to keep him from leaving, but Indle King shrugged him off.
"He was agitated and sweating profusely because when I touched him, my hand was wet," Soloviev said.
The final visit in September was punctuated by conversations during which Indle King presented written lists to his father-in-law, detailing what he perceived as Anastasia King’s flaws, including her unwillingness to engage in sex.
Indle King suspected his wife was cheating on him, and he did not like letting her out of his sight, Soloviev said. One day the young woman and her mother left to go shopping, and an angry Indle King burst out of his bedroom "and began to run after them with uncharacteristic speed, dressed just in a T-shirt and shorts, which he had been sleeping in," Soloviev said.
Indle King continued the chase until his wife and her mother got into a taxi and drove away, creating a scene that attracted attention in the neighborhood. People there normally don’t go outside partially dressed, and they were surprised to see a man as portly as the 5 foot 7, 275-pound Indle King in the street, Soloviev said.
Later Wednesday, the jury watched 90 minutes of home video Indle King shot during the Bishkek trip. The tape depicted the couple and her parents in their home and while sightseeing and shopping .
But for a nearly 55 surreal minutes, the tape showed Anastasia King at a disco, dancing alone amid multicolored and blinking lights. She was dressed in a tight, white and gray pantsuit, possibly imitation snakeskin. Her nearly waist-long blond hair whirled as the 20-year-old gyrated almost nonstop.
On at least two occasions, she put her hand up to the video camera lens as if to halt the taping, but it continued from several angles. At times the camera focused on her breasts, pelvis and buttocks.
Another segment of the tape captured Anastasia King cracking nuts on the concrete near her parents’ home. The camera zoomed in and lingered for several seconds on her cleavage.
The tape was confiscated from Indle King by police investigating Anastasia King’s death.
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431
or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.
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