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State v. McGarvey12/6/2005
n at Cliff's house," and then listened as McGarvey told his wife and Edwardson details of the killings. A heavy drinker, Armstrong admitted to being "half lit" at the time he overheard these conversations. According to Armstrong, McGarvey said he went to Grant's property and while conversing with Grant at the west door, Grant "flipped out"-perhaps because he was on methamphetamine-and pulled a gun on McGarvey. Armstrong testified that McGarvey said a wrestling struggle ensued, resulting in Grant "popp off a couple rounds, one round on either side of his head," at which point McGarvey "wrestled the gun back away from [Grant] and shot him a few times." Armstrong testified that McGarvey claimed to have shot Nelson only after seeing Nelson running to a car, because McGarvey "thought [Nelson] either had a shotgun in his hand or he was reaching for the shotgun out of the car." Armstrong thought McGarvey said he threw the murder weapon into the river.
Armstrong further testified that a few days after overhearing McGarvey confess, he told his mother, Susan Fox, of the homicides, hoping she would offer him a place to live-which she did. After residing in the motor home on McGarvey's property for another couple weeks, Armstrong moved in with his mother. Approximately ten days after hearing from her son, Fox phoned in the anonymous tip implicating McGarvey. Law enforcement did not obtain details from Armstrong, however, until police arrested him on a fourth offense of driving under the influence (DUI), a felony, and a hit-and-run accident. Armstrong promised testimony against McGarvey and subsequently received a deferred prosecution on his felony DUI. He also inquired of authorities about receiving a Crime Stopper's reward for providing information about the unsolved homicides. Prior to McGarvey's trial, in an effort to avoid testifying, Armstrong twice jumped bail before law enforcement revoked his suspended sentence. At some point while in jail, Armstrong wrote a letter to McGarvey demanding payment of $3,900 for some property he claimed McGarvey stole and damaged. The letter suggested that McGarvey push back the trial date so that Armstrong could take care of his "stuff." At trial, Armstrong indicated that he wanted to avoid testifying at McGarvey's trial and thus, needed the money in order to "run." In exchange for cooperating with the prosecution, the State deferred prosecution on Armstrong's felony DUI charge and dropped the bail-jumping charges, giving him a five-year suspended sentence.
As for Edwardson, he did not implicate McGarvey when detectives initially questioned him regarding the homicides-even though the prosecution threatened to charge him with obstruction of justice if he remained silent. Although Edwardson originally refused to cooperate, he eventually changed his mind and provided an interview. With regard to McGarvey's confession, Edwardson's testimony at trial was substantially similar to Armstrong's. He explained that on the day of the homicides, McGarvey "started telling me how he shot these two people down in Ferndale." According to Edwardson, Armstrong was present for about half the conversation, which lasted approximately twenty or thirty minutes. While he could not remember the victims' names, Edwardson said McGarvey identified one of the men as McGarvey's cousin. Edwardson speculated at trial that McGarvey had killed Grant for writing a bad check. (Trial witness Dallas Koepfli also stated that McGarvey appeared angry with Grant around the date of the homicides.) Edwardson testified that after hearing about the deaths, he suggested retrieving drugs and money from Grant's property. Armstrong took off in his truck for that purpose, but on the way, changed his mind and picked up be
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