Fallout from Grouse Creek battery widens

SANDPOINT — Criminal charges are piling up around the periphery of a brutal assault near Grouse Creek Falls last month, a matter which continues to be investigated by Bonner County sheriff’s detectives.

A 17-year-old boy was reportedly struck in the face with a rifle stock during an alcohol-fueled confrontation between two groups of people on the morning of July 30.

A Bonner County woman was arrested Thursday for attempted kidnapping in the second degree — an offense which appears to have been committed in retaliation for the battery at Grouse Creek.

Krystal Lynn Marie Hepinstall, 18, was ordered held Friday on $20,000 bail. A public defender was appointed to represent her and she was ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim.

Hepinstall is accused of aiding and abetting two other people in a midnight attack on a 20-year-old man near the corner of Walnut and Division on Aug. 16.

The two alleged attackers apparently suspected the 20-year-old of knowing the identities of the perpetrators of the Grouse Creek assault. The 20-year-old told Sandpoint Police he was pummeled and forced into Hepinstall’s vehicle. He was beaten further, but managed to escape the sedan and fled the scene, a police report said.

Court documents indicate the two suspects in the Walnut Street attack are wanted for arrest. Sheriff’s investigators said the suspects in the Grouse Creek assault are also at large and being sought by deputies for questioning.

“They have an idea who they are, but they haven’t located them yet,” Bonner County Sheriff’s Det. Lt. Doug Harris said of the Grouse Creek suspects.

While investigating the Grouse Creek incident, deputies recognized two suspects in an early morning beer theft at the Sagle Conoco, which occurred seven hours before the teenager was beaten at Grouse Creek.

The beer theft suspects — Jonathan Dean Lewis-Huckabee and Glenn Alan Chapman Jr. — were with the 17-year-old when he was attacked by the assailants at Grouse Creek.

Lewis-Huckabee, 21, and Chapman, also 17, are charged with burglary.

Court records allege that the two left Grouse Creek in search of more beer, but were denied because it was after 2 a.m. A clerk at the convenience store reportedly told deputies the pair absconded with an 18-pack and a 12-pack after being advised alcohol cannot be lawfully sold at that hour.

A preliminary hearing in Lewis-Huckabee’s case is set for Sept. 16. A pretrial conference in Chapman’s juvenile court case is planned Sept. 1.