Hitchhiker? DNA leads to husband

YAKIMA, Wash. — Stephen Harwood once told detectives he was a big believer in karma.

"That's an interesting statement, because of how things developed," said Stew Graham, chief of detectives for the Yakima County Sheriff's Office.

The statement, made in the days after Harwood's common-law wife died in what was perhaps Yakima County's most mysterious homicide of 2009, was apparently a reference to Harwood's belief that fate would catch up to the hitchhiker he identified as the assailant.

Sheriff's detectives, meanwhile, maintained their belief in more tangible concepts, such as witness statements and physical evidence.

Harwood, 34, was arrested Monday afternoon in Butte, Mont., on suspicion of first-degree murder in the death of Sheryl Huntley, a 40-year-old former Yakima resident.

He had been at a court-ordered drug treatment program on a misdemeanor intimidation charge.

Nine days after Huntley's July 1 shooting on Interstate 82 outside Selah, a Richland man jumped to his death from the Fred Redmon Bridge, just north of the Selah Creek rest area.

A state trooper who entered the canyon to investigate the suicide spotted a handgun when he stumbled, most literally, over a sagebrush.

Because the rest area is within a half mile or so north of where Harwood claimed to pick up the hitchhiker, detectives decided to send the pistol off to the crime lab.

According to an affidavit filed to secure an arrest warrant last week in Yakima County Superior Court, DNA from blood inside the pistol barrel matches DNA recovered from the driver's-side window glass, the steering wheel and the back seat of the car.

Recovering DNA from those spots in the car would be consistent with Harwood's location as he was driving, detectives say. And blood from his hand would have blown back into the barrel when he shot himself, apparently to bolster his account that the hitchhiker had attacked both of them before running into the night.

Due to testing procedures, the Washington State Patrol did not sample Harwood's DNA against the samples taken from the gun and vehicle, Graham said. That will be done once he returns to Yakima County to await trial.

Harwood's account had imme-diately prompted questions from both investi-gators and the public.

Lacking immediate physical evidence to contradict Harwood, detectives held fast to their public statement that they had not been able to punch any holes in his story.

"We had always hoped for something to come back on the forensic side," Graham said, noting that scientific advances in the past decade have improved DNA's role in crime investigations.

Two weeks ago, a crime lab technician called the sheriff's office to report the DNA information.

It was the crucial piece that detectives needed in order to seek a warrant, but they already had other indications that pointed to Harwood.

Harwood lives on a gun range in the Thompson Falls, Mont., area, and a nephew told detectives that he had recently fired a handgun similar to the one recovered under the bridge, according to the warrant request.

Harwood also said he preferred living in Montana because it was a "lot cleaner and a lot whiter," yet he claimed to have picked up someone resembling a Hispanic gang member at 3 a.m., detectives noted.

Despite the purported traumatic experience that he and Huntley went through, Harwood offered a very detailed description of the hitchhiker -- down to the diamond-stud earrings he was wearing.

The entry angle for the bullet also would have been difficult for a right-handed assailant in the back seat, as Harwood described, detectives said.

Harwood said he drove erratically through Yakima in order to attract police attention and seek help. Witnesses said he was familiar with the Yakima area and should have known how to find a hospital.

Graham and lead detective Sam Perrault traveled Monday to Butte to arrest Harwood.

He's expected to be returned to Yakima after an extradition hearing. Because of a Grant County arson conviction, he also faces a charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm.

Huntley's relatives in the Yakima area could not be located on Monday.

* Mark Morey can be reached at 509-577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.

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