Local News

Seattle police Officer Britt Sweeney Kelly testifies Tuesday in King County Superior Court. (Christine Clarridge / The Seattle Times) Update at 3:11 p.m.: Court adjourned for the day Tuesday just after Kelly testified that she and her partner, Timothy Brenton, pulled their patrol car over moments before shots were fired, killing Brenton. Kelly will resume her testimony…

A judge on Thursday man ordered a mental evaluation for a man accused of slitting a the throat of Renton clerk during a robbery earlier this month. After undergoing the evaluation, Darren Gayles will face a competency hearing on Feb. 18 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial for first-degree assault…

Following a break, testimony in two death-penalty trials being heard in King County Superior Court in Seattle will resume Monday. In an unusual bit of timing, Christopher Monfort, suspected of killing Seattle police Officer Timothy Brenton in 2009, and Joseph McEnroe, charged with killing six members of his then-girlfriend’s family in Carnation in 2007, are being tried…

Melissa Protz The parents of a Seattle middle-school teacher killed in a boating collision on Lake Washington in July have filed a wrongful death suit against Richard Hicks, a Renton real estate agent who was allegedly drunk when he is accused of slamming his speeding powerboat into a slow-traveling sail boat. Hicks, 46, was charged…

Christopher Monfort is seated in a wheelchair before the start of his death-penalty trial in King County Superior Court. (Steve Ringman / The Seattle Times ) Update at 2:35 p.m.: Veteran defense attorney Todd Gruenhagan told jurors about Monfort’s troubled childhood and his experiences being bullied as a mixed-race youth in Indiana and Alaska. Monfort was living…

Joseph McEnroe walks into court Tuesday morning before the start of his trial. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times) Update at 2:40 p.m.: Joseph McEnroe’s defense attorney told jurors during his opening statement that McEnroe was coerced into killing the Anderson family by his mentally ill girlfriend. “Joe did love the Andersons; he loved Wayne and Judy. He…

A French woman who was a visiting second-grade teacher at a language-immersion school in Bellevue has been charged with sexually abusing students. Florence Fournier-Montgieux, 31, is accused of putting her hands down the shirts of two of her female students multiple times prior to her termination from the French Immersion School of Washington in February 2014,…

Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday the appointment of Veronica Alicea Galván to the King County Superior Court bench. Veronica Alicea Galván Galván is a former Assistant City Attorney for the city of Seattle who currently presides over the Des Moines Municipal Court and operates a dual-language courtroom that allows cases to be heard in Spanish. She earned…

Tyler Williams, a 27-year-old Iraq war veteran who was featured in a Times story last week about local efforts to reduce demand for prostitution, was sentenced Friday to nearly 16 months in prison following his conviction last month for attempted commercial sex abuse of a minor. Williams, who posted an ad seeking sex with “a…

Brandon Olebar, center, is the first Innocence Project Northwest exoneree awarded from a wrongful conviction compensation under a law championed by Rep. Tina Orwall (D-Des Moines), right (black jacket), and the Innocence Project Northwest Legislative Advocacy Clinic. (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times) A Seattle man who spent 10 years in prison after he was…