Binding plea agreement sought in murder case

SANDPOINT — A plea agreement has been reached in the case of a Clark Fork man who exposed a slaying in Bonner County.

Christopher Robin Garlin is charged as an accessory to the shooting death of Michael Wyatt Smith because he initially withheld information about the 2011 killing in Cocolalla.

Garlin, 19, divulged knowledge of Smith’s killing after being arrested in connection with the burglary of a Ponderay pawn shop earlier this year.

Garlin, according to court documents, told sheriff’s investigators he witnessed Austin Blake Thrasher shoot Smith to death with a revolver last September.

Thrasher, 20, is charged with first-degree murder, although his case is on indefinite hold because he has been deemed too mentally ill to assist in his own defense.

Smith, also 19, was allegedly killed because he was seeing a 16-year-old Clark Fork girl whom Thrasher had dated and apparently continued to see after his marriage.

Smith was reported missing, but his killing went undetected for five months.

Thrasher’s wife, Jennifer, is also charged with accessory to murder. At her husband’s preliminary hearing, Jennifer Thrasher testified that she didn’t witness the shooting, but did help conceal Smith’s body in a makeshift grave in the Rapid Lightning drainage.

Jennifer Thrasher, 23, further testified that she had entered into a plea agreement, although there is no record yet of one being filed with the court.

All three suspects in the Smith murder were arrested in January in connection with the burglary of Pawn Now. Austin Thrasher remains charged in state court in that case, although his alleged accomplices in the heist are being prosecuted U.S. District Court.

The proposed terms of Garlin’s plea agreement include a sentence that’s concurrent with the sentence imposed in the federal case as long as it does not exceed two years.

If Garlin is sentenced to time served in the federal case, however, he would not be required to serve time in the state case, according to the agreement.

The agreement requires Garlin to plead guilty to the accessory charge, cooperate with investigators and testify as a state’s witness.

“The Defendant’s duty under the terms of this Agreement is to tell the truth whether or not it bolsters the State’s case against any particular individual,” the agreement states.

The agreement was filed in 1st District Court on Wednesday.

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall and Garlin’s defense counsel, Sandpoint attorney Paul Vogel, seek to make the agreement binding upon the court.

If the court declines to adhere to the terms of the accord, Garlin would be allowed to withdraw his plea and proceed to trial.

A court’s ruling on the agreement is pending.