The best eyewitness to the September 2000 murder of Anastasia King is the man who strangled her, a Snohomish County Superior Court jury was told Wednesday.
That same man, mainly through tape recordings, television interviews and court transcripts, will make the case against himself in the first-degree murder trial, deputy prosecutor Janice Albert said.
Daniel Kristopher Larson, 26, will tell the jury how his landlord directed him to put a necktie around Anastasia King’s neck and pull it tight, Albert said in her opening statement.
Larson went on trial on a first-degree murder charge in the death of the Mountlake Terrace mail-order bride. The prosecutor wants to convince the jury that Larson should be convicted of first-degree murder, the same crime as the woman’s husband, Indle King Jr., who is now serving a 29-year prison term.
Prosecutors allege that King and Larson acted together to kill the 20-year-old woman, a native of Kyrgyzstan in the former Soviet Union who married Indle King Jr. with the hope of living a better life in the United States.
This is the second time Larson has come to court facing murder charges in Anastasia King’s death.
He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2002, and agreed to testify against Indle King Jr.
He testified, but broke the terms of the plea agreement by attempting to get his own conviction tossed out on appeal.
That allowed the prosecutor to try him again for the more serious first-degree murder charge, a crime that could add a decade or more of prison time to Larson’s current 20-year sentence.
What’s more, an appeals court already has ruled that the second-degree murder conviction and Larson’s prison term will stand no matter what happens in the new trial.
Defense lawyer Karen Halverson on Wednesday made it clear she’s trying to keep Larson from a first-degree murder conviction and a possible longer sentence.
To prove first-degree murder, prosecutors must convince the jury that the crime was premeditated, or contemplated in advance by Larson, Halverson said.
The death by no means was justified, Halverson told jurors, but she reminded the panel that “the state needs to prove premeditation.”
She asked jurors to consider “who had the motive here? Who wanted Anastasia dead?”
It was the woman’s husband, Indle King Jr., the lawyer said.
Halverson maintained that Larson had no disagreement with Anastasia King, and that the defendant went through with the strangulation because Indle King Jr. had guns and threatened to kill him.
Larson did have a reason to please Indle King Jr. and willingly go along with the murder, Albert told jurors.
The younger man was a convicted sex offender and might have had trouble finding a place to live. At the time, Larson rented a room in the King house and “he didn’t want to lose his room,” Albert said.
The Kings had a troubled marriage, and Anastasia King had gone home to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to visit her parents. Indle King Jr. followed her and spent time with her and her family.
When the couple returned to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Indle King Jr. called Larson to make sure he had done some chores around the house.
“There was something else” in that phone conversation, Albert told jurors. “He would have to help (King) kill Anastasia,” Albert said. “Her last words were, ‘I knew you would do this,’ and they did.”
One of the first things jurors saw Wednesday was a KIRO-TV jailhouse interview with Larson in which he detailed how he strangled Anastasia King while her 300-pound husband sat on her.
Former Mountlake Terrace police detective Julie Jamison testified that the department had been searching for a missing woman, and the first big break in the case came in late December when Larson told her some of what happened. Larson led detectives to Anastasia King’s body.
Police found her remains in a shallow grave in an illegal dumping area on the Tulalip Reservation.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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