SPOKANE, Wash.—A prosecutor cast doubt Wednesday on witness accounts that a teenager didn't realize he had dragged a college student behind his pickup truck for 13 miles.
Witnesses have told sheriff's investigators that 20-year-old Jerid S. Sturman-Camyn had been threatening people with an ax during a night of heavy drinking at a hunting camp moments before he was dragged to his death.
Investigators allege Wendell C. Sinn Jr., 45, of Newman Lake, placed a noose around Sturman-Camyn's neck when he was distracted and attached the rope to the trailer hitch of the truck.
Sinn had told his son, 17-year-old Justin Daniel Sinn, to get in the truck and prepare to leave, authorities said. Justin Sinn apparently didn't know he was dragging Sturman-Camyn by the neck when his father told him to drive away, Pend Oreille County Sheriff Jerry Weeks has said.
But that makes no sense, Deputy Prosecutor Tony Koures said, in part because the youth presumably saw Sturman-Camyn being roped.
"I think the kid was supposed to stop, and he panicked," Koures said.
Wendell Sinn was arrested for investigation of second-degree murder or first-degree manslaughter.
Justin Sinn was not arrested, and no charges have been filed against him. A message left at the home he shares with his father was not returned.
Koures said he plans to charge Wendell Sinn, who is free on $100,000 bail, with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter.
"He ought to refrain from statements until he gets the facts," said John P. Nollette, the elder Sinn's lawyer. "I think there is a logical explanation for what occurred here."
Nollette said his client acted in self-defense and to protect the others at the campsite near Usk, about 45 miles north of Spokane.
Sturman-Camyn was dragged nearly 13 miles before the truck stopped near the Kalispel Indian Reservation. Koures said the body was dismembered during the dragging.
