Tracie Rachelle Fedell told a court on Monday that she didn’t want anybody to get hurt Jan. 10 when she went back to a wrecked car, retrieved a shotgun and tossed it to her boyfriend, Marc Best.
Best leveled the weapon at Snohomish County sheriff’s Deputy Darrell Jones, and Jones shot him to death in self-defense.
For her part in the incident, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Gerald Knight sentenced Fedell to 41/2 years in prison, the high end of the sentencing range.
It was the term sought by deputy prosecutor Bonnie Tweten.
She pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault and two counts of forgery.
Exactly what she said and did in January was disputed in Monday’s sentencing hearing. She said she meant to throw the shotgun away from Best, who asked her to shoot the deputy.
Jones and Tweten told the judge that Fedell threw the gun so her boyfriend could get it and yelled for him to shoot the officer.
Jones told the judge that Fedell knew her boyfriend’s intentions and that somebody was going to die.
“She was right,” Jones told the court. “Someone did die as a result of her actions that day – Marc Best.”
Jones said his shooting of Best is something he will have to live with for the rest of his life. An investigation of the shooting found no fault with Jones’ actions.
Fedell told Knight she’s sorry the deputy had to go through this.
Public Defender Brice Howard argued that Best was the real cause of the trouble, which followed a Washington State Patrol trooper’s high-speed pursuit of the car Best was driving. The trooper called off the pursuit because it endangered other motorists.
Jones happened to spot Best’s car, which crashed into a couple of parked cars in a south Everett industrial area.
“The whole incident originated with Marc Best,” Howard told the judge. He asked for a sentence of a little more than three years behind bars.
Knight told Fedell: “Your actions show just a clear indifference for a law enforcement officer and the loser you linked up with. … I can’t see any reason to give you one hour less than” the maximum term.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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