TACOMA — The state is being sued by relatives of a rape-murder victim who say the sex offender charged with killing the mother of three had not been properly monitored.
The case, filed Friday in Pierce County Superior Court, stems from the killing of Deborah Lee Funk, 40, at her apartment in Federal Way on April 15, 2000.
King County prosecutors charged Roy Elexie Webbe, now 33, a transient with aggravated first-degree murder in December. He has been found mentally unable to stand trial and remains at Western State Hospital.
Funk’s family previously filed a $15 million claim. The lawsuit does not specify a dollar amount.
Jack Connelly, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, wrote in court papers that community corrections officers should have taken action when Webbe flunked three monthly drug tests and refused to undergo a court-ordered mental health evaluation.
The officers also are accused of failing to visit Webbe at his home as required to verify that he was meeting the conditions of his release from prison.
Bodies recovered on Mount Adams: Two bodies were recovered Tuesday from the 9,000-foot level of Mount Adams, and authorities believe they could be the remains of two climbers lost more than 20 years ago. The bodies were chipped out of the ice on Crescent Glacier on Tuesday afternoon, said volunteer Mark Delagasse with the search and rescue division of the Yakima County Sheriff’s Department. The initial report that a body had been found on the 12,276-foot mountain in southwest Washington came from a climber on Sunday, and was confirmed Monday by a U.S. Forest Service ranger. The remains were taken to the county morgue for identification. Two men, Matt Larson, 25, and Gary Claeys, 28, were reported missing Nov. 14, 1980, in the same area where the bodies were found.
Auditors criticize secret purchase: The city council violated state open meeting laws by voting behind closed doors on the purchase of a downtown building, the state auditor says. The city leaders bought the building housing the Rail Tavern, across the city from City Hall, for $122,409 in December 1999. City officials have expressed a desire to replace the tavern and three nearby bars with more upscale businesses. On the advice of a lawyer, municipal officials did not disclose that the city was the buyer. There was no public vote on the transaction, nor was it announced. "When the city council used the executive session to conceal the purchase of property with public funds, it denied the public the right to be informed about city operations and to have a say in them," auditors wrote in a report released Friday. Council members said the seller would have raised the price if he knew the buyer was the city. The audit does not affect the purchase, nor is the auditor empowered to assess penalties.
From Herald news services
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