Hutto receives life sentence

The man who pleaded guilty to killing William “Bo” Kirk last fall in Kootenai County after a road rage incident, setting his truck on fire and stealing his debit cards, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

David E. Hutto was sentenced Monday in 1st District Court to life in prison without parole for counts of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and burglary. An additional felony, first-degree arson, was dismissed by prosecutors as part of a plea agreement.

District Judge Scott Wayman said Hutto’s crimes sent ripples of fear through the community and showed an ugly disregard for human life.

“There was no accident involved; this was no crime of passion,” Wayman said. “This was a premeditated, planned murder of another human being.”

According to prosecutors, Hutto, 44, and his alleged accomplice Justin R. Booth, 36, a convicted felon who was on parole for robbery, burglary and theft convictions, kidnapped Kirk from his Coeur d’Alene driveway, Oct. 22, stole his debit card, bound him with zip ties and drove him to his execution. Later that night, surveillance cameras captured two people in Kirk’s truck withdrawing cash — a total of $900 — at bank drive-throughs in Dalton Gardens and Hayden. Kirk’s 2015 GMC truck was found burning on Rimrock Road north of Hayden later that night.

Kirk’s body was discovered three days later in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest along Hayden Creek Road. He had been shot at least twice, according to testimony.

Booth faces a federal firearms charge, but has not been charged by the state.

In a presentation to the court that included surveillance video from businesses and a detailed timeline, Kootenai County prosecutor Barry McHugh said Hutto and Booth were driving together in a Chevy S-10 pickup truck on Ramsey Road, between Prairie and Hanley avenues when Kirk, who was behind them in a 2015 GMC pickup, shined his lights into their cab.

The truck lights angered the men, who followed Kirk to his house, a two-story custom home that stood apart from other newly built homes in a nearby subdivision. That’s where the 41-year-old X-ray technician was abducted at gunpoint, McHugh said.

“Hutto admitted he got out of the truck and stuck the pistol in Kirk’s face,” McHugh said. “This individual acted with an intention to kill, with a plan to kill.”

Hutto, 44, shackled and wearing a barn-red jumpsuit for his Monday morning sentencing at the Kootenai County jail courtroom at 5500 N. Government Way in Coeur d’Alene, watched the proceeding without speaking and only averted his eyes when Kirk’s family members read statements.

“My dad meant the entire world to me,” Kirk’s 13-year-old daughter Chelsi told the court. “People think I’m a strong person, but that’s just what they think. Everyday, I look out the window and cry.”

Packed to its capacity of 55 people, the small courtroom was filled mostly with relatives of the victim, a father of four, who was known for his humor and devotion to his family.

As he sat in a high-backed cushioned chair between defense attorneys, Hutto had a longer beard and longer hair than he did in the booking photos taken after his Oct. 27 arrest at a Burger King five days after Kirk’s body was recovered. He sat quietly through the three-hour proceeding that included lengthy arguments by prosecutors and his defense team, as well as statements from Kirk’s family members including his wife, Amanda, daughter Chelsi, his son, Bryan, and sister Claudia Jackson.

Public defender Chris Schwartz painted his client as a man with an opioid addiction, who also suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and had been admitted several times for mental issues. Hutto, a career criminal who had not before been charged with a violent crime, Schwartz said, told people tall tales of being a sniper with a mercenary group in Iraq. He was invited to Idaho by Booth not long before the incident, Schwartz said. He shared a home with Booth on Miles Avenue in Hayden, and the two operated a small-engine repair business. When the business failed to make money, Booth made plans to carjack a vehicle that he would sell to a source in Spokane, Schwartz said. He also concocted plans to burglarize homes in Coeur d’Alene subdivisions where he had worked as a painter and maintenance man.

The crime raised considerable fear in the community, the judge said, and family members attested to their difficulties feeling safe since Kirk’s death.

If there was a silver lining, family members said, it is Kirk’s memory and his warmth that remains.

“My last words to my dad were, ‘I love you,’” Chelsi said. “And his last words to me were, ‘I love you too my beautiful princess.’”