TACOMA — A man was shot to death while walking back to his apartment from a convenience store, and police appealed to the public for information.

The man, 25, was shot about 6:45 p.m. Wednesday as he was walking back along E. Portland Avenue near E. 46th Street to the Sunrise Apartments where he and his girlfriend were apartment-sitting, officer Mark Fulghum said.

The man made it back to the apartment, told his girlfriend he had been shot and collapsed. He died at Tacoma General Hospital.

Police said he had been shot once in the chest. The motive remained unclear and police were not immediately able to find any witnesses, Fulghum said.

Renton

Standoff death: A little more time on the telephone, Tiffany Diam Pham says, and she might have succeeded in talking her husband out of a standoff in which he wound up being shot to death. She said Duong Pham, 32, a Vietnamese immigrant, hung up after saying he would come out of her house Tuesday morning, but he remained inside until sundown and was shot by a Tukwila police officer, part of a multijurisdiction special team at the scene. She said she, one of his sons and his mother spoke with him on his cellular phone in a half-hour conversation about 9 or 10 a.m. A special weapons and tactics team entered about 5:30 p.m., and the Tukwila officer fired at least three shots after Pham confronted him with a handgun in the attic, Bartley said.

Colfax

DUI death guilty plea: A Kettle Falls man has pleaded guilty to felony charges stemming from a crash that killed a Moscow, Idaho, motorcyclist. Zachary Smith-Cline, 22, is scheduled to be sentenced April 2 after pleading guilty Tuesday in Whitman County Superior Court to vehicular homicide while driving intoxicated and hit and run involving a death. Police say Smith-Cline was drunk and attempting to pass cars on the shoulder of Highway 270 between Pullman and Moscow when his car struck the motorcycle George Remington was riding Oct. 11. Remington, 54, was critically injured when his Harley-Davidson was thrown into the path of an oncoming car. He died two days later in a Spokane hospital.

Stevenson

Sheriff cleared: The Skamania County prosecutor has cleared the county sheriff of accusations that he mistreated a jail inmate by grabbing her by the hair when she grew combative. After investigating the January incident, prosecutor Peter Banks said Thursday that he found no criminal conduct, noting there was no evidence that Sheriff Dave Brown dragged the woman or placed her on the ground in the snow. Tanya Peterson, 33, was jailed Jan. 5 for a mental evaluation after her mother called for help, saying her daughter was intoxicated and suicidal.

Kennewick

Suspect in 1998 slaying pleads innocent: A man sought since 1998 in the killing of a union activist in Richland has pleaded innocent after being arrested in and extradited from Memphis, Tenn. Pablo Villafranco, 30, formerly of Othello, pleaded innocent Wednesday in Benton County Superior Court to first-degree murder in the shooting of Jose Muro, 39. Villafranco, who was arrested Dec. 18, remained in jail with bail set at $500,000. If convicted he faces 20 to 27 years in prison, prosecutor Andrew Miller said.

Oregon

Brazen burglar sentenced: A woman charged with burglarizing rural homes in broad daylight after first knocking on the door to see if anyone was at home was sentenced to 9 1/2years in prison in a Eugene courtroom. Police said Patricia Gaylene Hoeper-Brown, 37, preyed on owners of upscale homes in rural areas and on the fringes of metropolitan areas by knocking on doors soon after people left for work or on weekend trips. If someone answered, she recited a story about having lost her dog or having run over a pet nearby. Investigators got on her trail after they found her parole papers in a ditch near a burglarized home.

From Herald news services