SEATTLE — Two day laborers who worked on the remodel of a Mercer Island home have been charged with second-degree murder, accused of killing the project foreman with a 2-by-4 last spring.
Christopher Charles Loy and Scott Lewis Conroy worked at the home May 17, the day Mercer Island police got a 911 call that someone had fallen from the roof, according to charging papers.
The foreman, James Hayes, 42, of Bremerton, died at Harborview Medical Center the next day of blunt-force injuries to the head. The death was ruled a homicide.
The defendants are scheduled for arraignment Dec. 18 in King County Superior Court.
Mercer Island police detectives determined that Hayes’ killers had stolen $600, a nail gun and other tools and belongings.
Inquest jury sides with officer in Seattle traffic death: An inquest jury has ruled in favor of a Seattle police officer in the traffic death of a cyclist in North Seattle. The accident occurred before dawn Feb. 27, when a squad car driven by Officer Christopher Hansen struck cyclist Joel Silvesan in an intersection. The six inquest jurors ruled for the officer Friday on virtually all questions at issue, including whether Hansen, 25, was using emergency lights and whether he had the green light when he entered the intersection. The jury also found that Silvesan, 31, had been using alcohol before the accident and was impaired. Attorneys in the case said his blood-alcohol level was 0.05 — below the state’s drunken-driving standard of 0.08.
Tacoma
Restitution ordered in scheme that cost victims $1.5 million: A federal judge has sentenced two defendants in a Ketron Island real-estate scheme that cost victims about $1.5 million. U.S. District Judge Jack E. Tanner sentenced Charles Fain to 10 years in prison and Catherine Cooley to 7 1/2years. At sentencing Friday, he also ordered them to pay $1.3 million in restitution. They were convicted earlier of 11 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and bank fraud. According to court records, Fain and Cooley promoted a real estate investment and development project on the island, located between Steilacoom and Anderson Island in Pierce County. The upscale community was to include a golf course, marina, expanded ferry service and a destination hotel. Instead, prosecutors said, they fraudulently acquired title to 13 properties, which were sold or used as collateral for other transactions. They did little to develop the island during the period at issue, between 1994 and 1998.
Yakima
Campaign to unionize apple workers loses steam: A five-year campaign to unionize the state’s apple-packinghouse workers has suffered a setback, with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters saying it no longer seeks to represent workers at Stemilt Growers or Yakima Fruit and Cold Storage. The Teamsters narrowly won the right to represent workers at Stemilt, the state’s largest packinghouse, in October 1999. Since then, however, employees have campaigned against the union and launched a drive to bar it from the plant. A similar campaign was launched at Yakima Fruit and Cold Storage. Workers at both houses were expected to vote before the end of the year on whether to bar the Teamsters, but the Teamsters, sensing defeat, beat them to the punch.
From Herald news services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
