Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

OLYMPIA – As expected, Bernard K. Howell III was sentenced yesterday to 26 years and eight months in prison for the murder of 60-year-old Vanda Skau Boone on a bicycle trail in Tenino last August.

The 27-year-old Tenino man sat quietly between his two attorneys in Thurston County Superior Court as lawyers, the judge and a friend of the victim spoke of the case that was discovered when Howell was pulled over by a deputy and Boone was found dead in his truck, wrapped in a sleeping bag with weights strapped to her body.

Deputy Prosecutor Jim Powers asked for the maximum sentence.

“The state is asking, believes and urges upon the court, that is the only appropriate sentence,” Powers said.

He called it a particularly gruesome murder, with the victim, timing and place methodically chosen.

There were multiple blunt force and sharp force injuries, and suffering, Powers said.

“So the victim not only died at the hands of this defendant, but she also suffered before she died,” he said.

Howell had been living off and on in Tenino with his father when he was arrested Aug. 8. He pleaded guilty three weeks ago to first-degree murder.

Defense attorney Robert Jimerson told the judge yesterday his client chose to plead guilty, when no plea agreement was offered and was remorseful.

“He decided he wanted to plead guilty and he wanted to accept responsibility for what he did,” Jimerson said.

And while it didn’t excuse what happened Jimerson said, Howell was found to show symptoms of a severe psychotic disorder, the symptoms of which the evaluator said Howell didn’t appear to be fabricating or exaggerating.

Howell admitted to heavy methamphetamine use in the days before the murder, and the evaluator could not tell the cause of the symptoms, according to Powers.

Jimerson asked for middle of the standard sentencing range, 280 months.

Boone, a massage therapist who worked in Olympia and lived in Yelm, was attacked on the bicycle path known as the Yelm to Tenino Trail near Churchill Road Southeast.

Lori Drayson, who said she and Boone moved from New York to open a healing center, asked Judge Gary Tabor yesterday to lock Howell up for as long as possible.

“How can I ever forget that phone call … how do I ever erase the image of the horrified look on my friend’s face when the coroner showed me the photo to identify her,” Drayson said.

She called Howell viscous, and not entitled to walk among the living.

“How do one feel safe when you have such a creature as Mr. Howell lurking out there,” she said. “It wasn’t even in the dark of night.”

Howell chose to address the judge. He was polite and brief.

“God knows how sorry I am,” Howell said. “Christ willing, I’ll have a family someday.”

He asked the judge to put him in protective custody as he feared what could happen to him in prison.

Judge Tabor said he recognized Howell has mental health issues and substance abuse issues but they don’t mitigate what he did, he said.

He had a plan, and it was deliberate, cruel and bizarre, the judge said.

“The evidence tells us several things, it tells us there was indeed suffering in this case,” Tabor said.

That it occurred over a substantial period of time makes it particularly egregious, he said.

Tabor sentenced Howell to 320 months and then three years in community custody after his release. He also ordered substance abuse and mental health treatment.

Howell’s mother, father and older sister were in the courtroom, although they did not address the judge.

His mother, Cathy Howell, said she didn’t want people to know what happened. She had little to say afterward.

“My son is mentally ill and I’m going to be dead when he gets out,” she said.

His father, Bernard Howell Jr., spoke briefly.

“We’d like to have something said, we regret what happened,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate things like this are happening.

“I speak to him almost every day, or every other day, he knows he’s sick. He’s very remorseful.”
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Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter

This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Top story of the day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.