Hammer attack is headed to television

Larry Cragun burst into his Bayview neighbor's mobile home in December 2010, shouted a profanity and proceeded to bludgeon a family of four with a hammer.

The attack resulted in the death of 43-year-old Patricia Heath, a tragedy which still resonates with residents in the little town on the edge of Lake Pend Oreille.

Nearly six years later, the Discovery Channel will be featuring the heinous crime in its new documentary drama “Dead Silent,” which airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. The one-hour episode dubbed "Madness on the Lake" will be a re-creation of the incident and will feature interviews with a victim, Yvonne Wallis, and other locals close to the case.

The Discovery Chanel's website describes the upcoming episode.

"Bayview, Idaho is a remote and breathtakingly beautiful lakeside community, an oasis for vacationers to get away for some much needed R&R," the website reads. "For locals like Yvonne Wallis and her family, the quaintness is cozy and peaceful. For others like Larry Cragun, it’s a little too quiet. As winter approaches and tourist season comes to an end, the isolation plays with Larry Cragun’s mind. Can this family survive his senseless wrath?"

Cragun, who had a history of mental illness, was in an ongoing dispute with his neighbors, a family that lived 75 feet away from his trailer. Before the attack, he had made over 20 unfounded reports to Kootenai County authorities, saying his neighbors had burglarized his home or poisoned him.

Shortly after the attack, which resulted in a severe head injury for Wallis and injuries to Michael Heath and Jed Heath, Cragun went to a nearby businesses claiming to have killed all four victims.

Longtime Bayview resident Ralph Jones, owner of Ralph's Coffee Shop, vividly remembers the day the tragedy rocked his community. Dead Silent's producers reached out to Jones last spring for background on the town and its residents, and he is also featured in the episode.

Jones said the in-person interviews were done in Coeur d'Alene and they shot video of the town of Bayview.

"I'm not quite sure vhow they're going to dramatize it all," Jones said. "It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out."

Jones likes that Bayview will be featured on television, but not under these circumstances.

"It's sad. We're getting national exposure for such a nefarious thing," Jones said. "But from a promotional view, any promotion is good promotion."

This wasn't the first hammer attack the town of 300 has experienced, either. In 1949, Jones said, a young girl killed her father with a hammer.

Herb Huseland, another longtime Bayview resident, lived 100 feet from Cragun and, after the attack, helped Wallis during her recovery.

Since the show's actors play the roles of people he knows personally, Huseland isn’t sure what to expect.

"It's all a re-creation with actors, so I don't know how accurate it's going to be. Might have given themselves license to fictionize some of it, even though they wouldn't need to."

The Captain's Wheel in Bayview will have a viewing party of the episode.

Daveana Pleznac-Huff, who works at Ralph's Coffee Shop, plans to DVR the episode.

"It was crazy that it happened here," Pleznac-Huff said. "I remember (Cragun) being very quiet and tall. And Yvonne. I can't believe that happened to her. She went through so much healing."