Costello found guilty of eluding, DUI

A Cocolalla 72-year-old who was charged with murder in Bonner County, and who led police on a chase last year while driving south in the wrong lane of U.S. 95 — dragging tree limbs from his dented pickup — was found guilty by a Coeur d’Alene jury of DUI and felony eluding.

Jurors deliberated 40 minutes Wednesday before delivering two guilty verdicts for James M. Costello, who will return to Bonner County to face a second-degree murder charge.

Costello is accused of gunning down his son last November in rural Bonner County.

A judge at a March hearing in Sandpoint ordered Costello held on $1 million bail.

The 72-year-old was sent to Coeur d’Alene to face a jury on two charges stemming from his Nov. 11 arrest south of Garwood in Kootenai County after leading state troopers on a 10-mile chase that started near Athol.

Troopers used a driving technique called a PIT maneuver, for Pursuit Intervention Technique, that caused Costello to lose control of his GMC pickup and led to his arrest.

The arrest, in which troopers said a drunken Costello was covered in blood when he repeatedly uttered to police that his son was all right, eventually resulted in the murder charge that will be heard by a Sandpoint jury later this year.

Troopers called Bonner County authorities, who checked on a bus parked on property at Pineview Lane on the west side of Cocolalla Lake that Costello shared with his son, James Jr.

Authorities found James Jr. shot to death.

Troopers said four callers had reported Costello’s white GMC driving south in the northbound lanes of U.S. 95 near Athol about 8 p.m. and the pickup truck continued south in the wrong lane after troopers joined in the chase.

“Each of the callers was northbound … and had to take evasive action to avoid a head-on collision,” according to Trooper Troy Tullener’s report.

The dented pickup, which was allegedly involved in a hit and run near Sagle, had an inoperable taillight, and sticks and brush hung from its shattered windshield.

At one point, the pickup reached speeds of 90 mph as Costello sought to elude police, Tullener wrote.

Costello had two dogs with him inside the truck when police stopped it. One of the dogs had three legs, police said.

The dogs weren’t injured.

Police at this week’s trial in Coeur d’Alene related to jurors their encounter with Costello.

“He had a mess of a face, bleeding, and older wounds on his face and head … He nearly fell … he was belligerent … his left eye was nearly shut … he had abrasions, scrapes, blood in his ear…” Sgt. Allen Ashby, an Idaho State Police trooper, said.

The pickup truck had a dented roof, its sides were scraped, the left side taillight was hanging out.

“We concluded (that) he had been in a crash,” Ashby said.

First District Judge Lansing Haynes set sentencing Nov. 5, while a jury trial for the murder charge is set Dec. 10 in Bonner County.