[Vision2020] Also from this morning's Tribune

[Nick Gier]

Murder victim was Samaritan, mayor says

By JOEL MILLS
of the Tribune, Dec. 14

Oakesdale resident Peter Zornes may have escorted frightened co-worker 
Louissa Thompson home the day they were allegedly killed by Thompson's 
ex-boyfriend Trevor Saunders, the mayor of Oakesdale said Monday.

"Unfortunately, it looks like he was playing the Good Samaritan role and 
was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Mayor Russell Rickett said of 
Zornes.

Pullman police found the bodies of Pullman resident Thompson, 27, Zornes, 
25, and Moscow resident Saunders, 29, Saturday evening at the Statesman 
Condominiums in northwest Pullman. They are calling the deaths a double 
murder-suicide.

Police also found a semiautomatic pistol in the condo they believe may be 
connected to the deaths.

Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson, acting as spokesman for the police department, 
said the three were apparently shot to death sometime Saturday.

Police have not named any suspects. Police Commander Chris Tennant said 
autopsies on the three bodies will be conducted today in Pullman. A suspect 
likely will be announced sometime this afternoon after the autopsies are 
done, Tennant said.

Rickett had been to Zornes' family home in Oakesdale Monday to pay his 
respects. Zornes' father is Tom Zornes, a former Oakesdale mayor and city 
councilor.

Tom Zornes told Rickett his son had just worked one of his first shifts at 
the ShopKo department store in Pullman. Thompson told Peter Zornes she was 
afraid to go home because of trouble with Saunders, and he agreed to escort 
her, Rickett said.

Tom Zornes raised the initial concern that led police to the bodies, 
Tennant said. He called ShopKo to talk to his son, but he hadn't shown up 
for work. A worried ShopKo manager then asked police to do the welfare 
check at the Statesman Condominiums, Tennant said.

Saunders pleaded guilty to rape in Latah County in 1996, a check of his 
court records revealed. He was listed as a registered sex offender in Idaho 
at the time of his death.

According to court records, Saunders was depressed and suicidal in the late 
1990s while he was on probation for the crime, attempted suicide once and 
threatened to kill all the people involved in his rape case.

"(Saunders) said he had attempted suicide by taking a whole bottle of 
aspirin and Tylenol," according to a report written by an unidentified job 
counselor in 1998, and included in Saunders' court records. "Said if he had 
a gun he would shoot" everyone involved in his case, the counselor's report 
continued.

The counselor wrote that Saunders continued to vent, and when he was told 
by the counselor that the threats had to be reported, Saunders backed down.

"He said he didn't really mean it, he was just packing a lot of anger 
around," the job counselor wrote.

Saunders had violated his probation multiple times by not holding down a 
job or receiving sex offender counseling, according to the court file.

In one of several probation violation reports, Saunders' probation officer 
wrote that Saunders felt he got a raw deal because two others had sex with 
the same 16-year-old girl he pleaded guilty to raping, she was a willing 
participant, and didn't complain to police until seven months after the 
incident.

"Mr. Saunders sees himself as the victim in the crime he has been charged 
with and has only shown immaturity and resentment when attempts to motivate 
him have been offered," wrote probation officer Tom Blewett.

Saunders attended Moscow High School, but never graduated, according to the 
court file. He was most recently employed as a deliveryman at the Furniture 
Center in Moscow, said Latah County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Jennifer 
McFarland.

There is nothing in Saunders' court file after 1999. He has a clean record 
after that, McFarland said.

Chuck Janssen, ShopKo's regional human resources supervisor from Spokane, 
said Thompson was a valued employee of eight years and that Zornes had been 
hired as seasonal help a week before his death.

Janssen was in Pullman Monday to help console employees, as was a counselor 
who will stay at the store as needed, Janssen said.

"It's definitely a sullen environment in the store right now," Janssen said.

Thompson has two young children who were found safe at their father's house 
in Pullman, Tennant said. Thompson and the father are divorced, he added, 
and the father has been eliminated as a suspect.

Washington State University spokesman James Tinney said Zornes was a 
student there. He graduated with honors in 2003, earning a bachelor of 
science degree in neuroscience in four years.

Oakesdale Mayor Rickett said Zornes was well known in his community.

"He was quite active in high school," Rickett said. "It's a tragic affair. 
The town is, I'm sure, really going to support them (the Zornes family)."

------

Mills may be contacted at jmills at lmtribune.com

"The god you worship is the god you deserve."
~~ Joseph Campbell

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part 
by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the 
interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual 
life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and 
art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." 
--Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm

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