Not guilty plea in Bristow killing

SANDPOINT — A Ponderay man implicated in the strangulation death of a Sandpoint woman in 1987 is pleading not guilty.

William Rey Acosta entered the plea during a hearing in 1st District Court on Sept. 9, court records show.

Acosta’s plea clears the way for a jury trial in 1st District Court on a charge of first-degree murder in April. He remains held at the Bonner County Jail with bail set at $1 million.

Acosta is accused of killing Tammy Rae Bristow, 18, inside her southside Sandpoint apartment, ostensibly to steal money that he knew she possessed.

Bristow was strangled with ligature fashioned from a tent’s guy line, according to Daily Bee news archives.

A 31-year-old homeless man was initially a suspect in Bristow’s slaying, although evidence conclusively linking him to the crime proved elusive.

Sandpoint Police and Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall resolved to reopen the investigation in 2016. DNA evidence collected from beneath Bristow’s fingernails was entered in to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS, which produced a match with Acosta’s DNA.

In between Bristow’s killing and his arrest, Acosta appears to have split his time between Bonner County and Arizona, where he served prison time for felony assaults. Marshall suspected those brushes with the law caused Acosta’s DNA to be entered into CODIS.

A Bonner County grand jury indicted Acosta, 49, on a charge of first-degree murder in June.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.