Hearing is postponed

SANDPOINT — Ongoing investigation is prompting another delay in a Bonner County murder case.

A preliminary hearing in the second-degree murder case against Linda Carol Provo-Buxton was set for last Wednesday, but the prosecution and defense sought another continuance due to the pending investigation, court records show. The hearing, in which a judge determines if there’s enough evidence to justify a trial in 1st District Court, was reset for Nov. 30 in Bonner County Magistrate Court. It’s the second continuance in the matter.

Provo-Buxton, 54, is being held at the Bonner County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail. She is accused of killing her boyfriend, Jeffrey Lester Newton, at their home in the Cabinet Mountains on Oct. 15. Lester, 57, died of apparent blunt force trauma, according to Prosecutor Louis Marshall.

Provo-Buxton was arrested behind a Ponderay gas station after reportedly attempting to turn herself in at the jail. Sheriff Daryl Wheeler, who apprehended Provo-Buxton, said the woman got cold feet and left the facility before a deputy could make contact with her.

At the time of the killing, Provo-Buxton was the protected party in a court order stemming from Newton’s arrest on a domestic violence charge dating back to Sept. 2, according to court documents. Newton’s presence at the couple’s home in the 1400 block of West Spring Creek Road would have been a violation of that order and the basis for an addition criminal charge.

A trial in Newton’s misdemeanor case was scheduled to occur two days before he was killed but was postponed because he was undergoing medical treatment out of state, court records indicate.

Details surrounding the slaying remain hard to come by. Probable cause and search warrant hearing testimony remains filed under seal, which reflects the pendency of the investigation.

Marshall has said Provo-Buxton called her daughter in Clark Fork and obtained a ride to the jail, but later obtained a ride to a gas station on U.S. Highway 95, about a half mile from the sheriff’s office complex.

Newton was accused of battering and choking Provo-Buxton in 2006 and striking her in the head with a framing hammer in 2014, although felony charges in those cases were dismissed by the state, according to the Idaho Supreme Court Data Repository.

Provo-Buxton has prior convictions for driving under the influence, but no prior history of violence in Idaho, according to the state repository.