Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe has scheduled a Tuesday morning press conference to announce whether he’ll seek the death penalty for a Monroe inmate charged with the Jan. 29 killing of corrections officer Jayme Biendl.
Byron Scherf, 52, already is serving life in prison without release. The convicted rapist reportedly has told detectives that his life should be “forfeit” for killing Biendl, 34, in the chapel at the Washington State Reformatory.
In charging papers filed Friday, prosecutors quoted a Feb. 14 note they say Scherf sent from his cell at the county jail in Everett: “I ask you to charge Aggravated 1st Degree Murder (w/the death penalty) at my arraignment and I WILL plead guilty! I have a moral obligation to do so. The Biendl family deserves no less. I will not put them through any more suffering than they are already enduring. They deserve swift justice and closure.”
Here is a full story on the case, and the charging papers.
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