Herald staff
SEATTLE — An unmarked King County sheriff’s patrol car has been found, undamaged and still containing a rifle, a shotgun and ammunition.
The $25,000 car, which officers feared was stolen last Friday, was located Monday. It had mistakenly been taken to a graphics firm in Tukwila that puts logos and police markings on department vehicles.
The 1999 Ford Crown Victoria had been parked with several other sheriff’s cars at the Metro Transit base. The deputy assigned to the car was working security in the downtown bus tunnel when a civilian worker took the wrong car to suburban Tukwila.
The deputy discovered the car was missing about 5:30 p.m. Friday.
51-unit complex planned for farm workers: A Seattle-based social service agency plans to build a 51-unit apartment complex for low-income agricultural workers on 4.9 acres west of Bellis Fair mall here. The two-, three- and four-bedroom units would be ready for occupancy a year after construction begins on the $6 million project next spring, said Melinda Jones, project developer for Intercommunity Housing of Seattle. Jones said the agricultural workers in the apartments would be year-round residents. Sterling Meadows would offer two-bedroom units for $255 to $418, three bedrooms for $288 to $475, and four bedrooms for $312 to $521, she said. Intercommunity Housing was founded by several Roman Catholic religious orders. It would finance Sterling Meadows partly with a $1 million state grant.
Man pleads guilty in wife’s killing: A Pasco man who shot and killed his estranged wife has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, avoiding a possible life prison sentence. Franklin County prosecutor Steve Lowe said he will ask for a 41-year sentence for James Bennett Jensen at a hearing Jan. 4. Defense attorney James Egan said he will seek a sentence of 25 years or less. Jensen, 32, had been charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the Sept. 16 shooting death of Tara Dee Jensen, 32. She had filed for divorce and had a restraining order in effect against her husband at the time of her death. Under state law, the restraining order could have allowed the prosecutor to seek the death penalty. But Lowe said Tara Jensen had allowed her husband to move back into her house at least two weeks before she was killed. Jensen chased his wife from her home and fired 14 shots as she sought help from a neighbor. She was struck 13 times.
