TFalls man arrested for murder

On July 1, 2009 a Thompson Falls woman died from a fatal gunshot wound to the head while driving to Yakima County, Washington on Interstate 82 with her boyfriend.

Stephen Harwood, 34, told police the night of the shooting that he and Sheryl Huntley, 40, picked up a hitchhiker south of the Selah Creek rest area off of I-82 headed eastbound.  Harwood said the hitchhiker robbed the couple, fatally shot Huntley and shot Harwood in the hand.  Harwood gave a descriptive account of what the assailant looked like, whom law enforcement officers never located.

“We were waiting on an analysis from the State Patrol Crime Lab team that processed the car and their conclusions.  Basically, does the physical evidence in the car support what Stephen was telling us that occurred?” said Stew Graham, Chief of Detectives for the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office.

A mere nine days after the shooting, coincidence sent a .22 caliber gun to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab after the car was already sent for processing, which led to the arrest of Harwood on suspicion for First degree murder of Huntley on Monday, February 8 in Butte, MT where he was an in-patient at a drug treatment program. 

On July 9, 2009 a man committed suicide by jumping off of the Fred G. Redmon bridge, which is located north of the Selah Creek rest area.  According to the affidavit, while officers were investigating this particular incident, a Washington state patrol trooper found a .22 caliber Thompson Contender single shot pistol at the bottom of the ravine.  Harwood told police on the night of Huntley’s murder that the hitchhiker was carrying a silver five-shot .22 caliber Ruger revolver. 

The pistol was photographed and sent to the crime lab. Graham said it would have been more difficult to make an arrest had the gun not been found as law enforcement officers were searching in the wrong direction to uncover the murder weapon supposedly used by the hitchhiker. Police were searching in between the points that Harwood said they picked up the hitchhiker near Selah Creek to the point they were told the hitchhiker fled.  The gun was found North of this area.

The affidavit said the pistol was found approximately five to six miles from where the shooting occurred and about a half mile from where Harwood told police they had picked up the hitchhiker.

“There were a lot of little pieces that came together, the final one was the forensic examination that tied the hand gun that was found to the car that the victim and Stephen had been traveling in,” said Graham.

The affidavit provides a list of evidence that led to the issuing of an arrest warrant.

As far as the alleged staged crime scene investigators found in the car, Graham said “it’s an academic question now, from the very early stages of the investigation and our response to the report that was made, what he (Harwood) told us happened, it was kind of doubtful that that was actually what  happened.”

First, the crime lab extracted and typed the DNA from blood found on a piece of glass in the driver’s side window of Harwood’s parents’ Dodge Neon, blood on glass found under the driver’s seat, blood from the steering wheel and blood found on the backseat of the car.  This DNA matched the DNA that was taken from inside the barrel of the .22 caliber pistol. 

According to the affidavit, the crime lab determined that the gun would have had to come from the car, the DNA was from a male and it was not Huntley’s and “blood blow back up the barrel would be consistent with the contact wound to Stephen’s hand.”

In addition to the DNA evidence that led to Harwood’s arrest, there is a 30-60 minute time period unaccounted for from the moment Huntley was shot to when Yakima police officers stopped Harwood’s car to find the blood on his hand dry and Huntley unconscious in the passenger seat.  Harwood told police the night of the shooting he was unaware of the hospital’s location.

Graham said they know the point in time Harwood arrived in Yakima County as a motorist reported seeing the vehicle “driven recklessly,” which Harwood said he was doing in order to attract police.

The affidavit explains that people who know Harwood said he has visited Yakima on multiple occasions.

Harwood was transported from Butte to Yakima County on Tuesday, February 16 for prosecution.