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 TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010 9:42 am |
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Local News 
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Father guilty of manslaughter in girl's death Jury convicts Marysville man of manslaughter, not murder, in fatal shooting EVERETT — A Marysville man was acquitted Monday of murdering his 6-year-old daughter inside their home last year.A Snohomish County jury instead convicted Richard Peters, 43, of first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Stormy Peters. Jurors weren't convinced that Peters intentionally pointed a .45-caliber Colt handgun at his daughter to scare her or get her to shut up, as alleged by prosecutors. The jury agreed that Peters was reckless and deliberately ignored the risks of handling a firearm around his daughter on Nov. 16, 2008. His disregard for the dangers ended Stormy's life, jurors decided. The first-grader was shot between the eyes. She died at a Seattle hospital the next morning. Peters faces more than 13 years in prison. “This man is going to be punishing himself for the rest of his life,” Everett defense attorney Karen Halverson said after Monday's verdict. Lawyers wrapped up their arguments Monday afternoon. Jurors spent less than four hours deliberating. Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Paul Stern on Monday praised the hard work of the sheriff's detective Brad Walvatne, who led the investigation. He also called the case tragic. “It's an incredibly unnecessary loss of life,” Stern said. Prosecutors alleged that Peters was drunk on vodka when he had Stormy fetch him the Colt semiautomatic handgun out of his bedroom. Stern told jurors that Stormy asked for her mother's help to get the gun, but her mother was on the phone. Stern said Peters' wife jotted down a quick note and told Stormy to give the note to Peters. Kristina Peters wrote that she was on the phone with her mother, who thought Richard Peters was at work. The note read: “She kept saying daddy wants. Tell her to shut up.” Stern told jurors that the girl brought her father the handgun and the note from her mother. Peters read the note and intentionally pointed a gun at Stormy to get her to shut up, Stern said. Peters had a second, unloaded gun on the table and thought he had that weapon in his hand when he pulled the trigger, Stern said. “He didn't mean to hurt her. He meant to scare her,” the prosecutor said. “You picked up the wrong gun,” Stern said to Peters during closing arguments Monday. Stern first charged Peters with first-degree manslaughter. He added a second-degree murder charge in August. New evidence showed that Peters intentionally pointed the gun at his daughter's head, Stern said. Pointing a loaded gun at someone is second-degree assault. Because the assault resulted in the girl's death, Peters committed murder, Stern told jurors. Halverson said there was no proof that Peters intentionally aimed at Stormy's head. Prosecutors were offering a theory that wasn't supported by facts, she said. There is no evidence that Peters even saw the note, Halverson said. Why would Peters point a gun at his child? Halverson asked the jury. The investigation was biased because detectives were upset that a little girl had been killed, she said. “Rich Peters is responsible for his daughter's death, but Rich Peters is not a murderer,” Halverson said during closings arguments. Peters told detectives he was removing the ammunition magazine when the handgun accidentally discharged. “It was a tough case. We've always felt that second-degree murder was a stretch,” Halverson said. Peters is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 1. Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com. |
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COMMENTS
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This is terrible. this happened in my childhood home i grew up in that neighborhood and we moved when my parents divorced...so many good memories in that house now stained....
jason kindlund | Nov 30, 2009 6:09 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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It sounds like it happened like this:
They were trying to hide the fact that the dad wasn’t at work while the mom was on the phone with her mother. Dad was instead at home drinking, playing with his guns.
The girl came to her mom and said “I need help, daddy said he wants his gun”, and probably ended up asking a few times, risking it to be known that he was actually at home and not working and mom was trying to keep it all hush hush over the phone so she wrote a note for him to tell him to try and tell the girl to be quiet about daddy being there.
He may have read it or he may have just overheard what the girl was saying and his thinking was to give her a hint that she needed to be quiet without him having to speak and risk being heard over the phone, held the gun up to her forehead. And then squeezed the trigger. Obviously he didn’t intend for it to go off as he was still trying to maintain that he wasn’t there, but at work. It may not have been deliberate but he killed his little girl nonetheless. All for what? A lie.
Jo Mama | Nov 25, 2009 6:47 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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"Stern is making the family out to be very bad people which there not."
Erika,
A father pointing a gun (loaded or unloaded) at his six year old daughter is the very definition of a bad person. I'd say Stern is on the right track.
Steve Smith | Nov 25, 2009 5:26 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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Who in the hell are you guys to sit here and judge people. Yes a little girls life was taken. If you don't know all the facts then keep your comments to your self. News papers lie they never give the whole truth about what really happen. These are statements NOT FACTS. Paul Stern can't even get his story straight. The note was not a fact. Stern is making the family out to be very bad people which there not. The family is going to live with this for the rest of there lives. Why don't everyone leave them alone. I would hate to ever see something happen to one of your family members. Then when people write things about you like this, you would get ******. News papers only give one side of the story and not the whole truth.
erika dow | Nov 24, 2009 11:03 pm | 1 replies | Request removal
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Anyone who allows their children to have access to guns should have never been allowed to breed. These people are irresponsible beyond measure and I am sad and scared for their surviving children. What kind of POS messes with guns after drinking gobs of vodka? And with kids in the house. Nothing like this could happen to most of us because most of us would never be so stupid and irresponsible with our kids. And as far as people posting comments about a news story in a public forum, well it isn't like our comments are going to kill anyone, so save your advice for the idiots whose reckless stupidity does kill. Believe me, no one with a brain cares what your types think.
Moon Dance | Nov 25, 2009 10:00 am | Request removal
Even the most ardent gun fanatic will tell you you should never point a gun at someone unless you intend to use it. Likewise guns and booze don't mix.
The guy ignored both things. Now his daughter's dead and he's off to prison.
Mark Stocker | Nov 24, 2009 7:06 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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I don't care if this man only intended to scare his daughter and accidentally picked up the wrong gun or not. The point of the matter is, that he aimed it at her in the first place, and pulled the trigger. Right between the eyes. If he had picked up the unloaded pistol & it only had been dry fired, do you really think that this poor little girl would have not been traumatized by that action alone? I think not. And that is mental abuse of a child of the highest order. Anyone that has ever looked down the barrel of a weapon and had the other person fire it, and it not go off, will know exactly what I am talking about. The terror that one feels is enough to make an adult soil themselves with unfathomable fear let alone an innocent, very young child. It only makes it worse that it is someone she knew & especially so since it was her own Father. The person who was supposed to be her first champion and defender against anything that could possibly hurt her or invoke fear. Even her own Mother failed her in this respect. As she seems to have known it was something that she shouldn't have been near or been scared to retrieve the gun on her own in the first place & sought her Mothers help. And she received nothing except for to be told to shut up. Absolutely despicable. I am so sick at heart that this man did not obtain the sentence that he so justly deserves, and that is Murder. Hopefully when he gets to prison his new set of "peers" will be more than happy to carry out their own trial, sentencing and delve out the consequences for his actions that he took that fateful day.
May you rest in peace my small child. There is nothing you ever could have done to have had your life cut so short at such an early and tender age.
May the angels protect you now.
Jolynn Piper | Nov 24, 2009 2:26 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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I'm sure this fool will punish himself good and long with bottle after bottle. This poor little girl sounds like she never had a chance at life. Being shot in the head and killed is the only thing I can think of that is worse than having these two sorry excuses for parents. Well Mom, he shut her up, didn't he? How can you let children handle guns? LOADED GUNS! And decide to take them out and play while you are drunk. It is too bad this idiot didn't shoot himself between the eyes. At least that would have saved the two other kids any future "mishaps".
Moon Dance | Nov 24, 2009 2:09 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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