Papers Reveal Bainbridge Island Murder Weapons -- Handgun And Shotgun Used, Court Documents Unsealed By Judge Show

PORT ORCHARD, Kitsap County - Three people killed on Bainbridge Island last March were first shot with a .22-caliber handgun and then with a 12-gauge shotgun, according to documents made public here last week.

The details of the killings are contained in portions of search-warrant affidavits which were unsealed by court order.

Prosecutors had sought to keep the records secret, saying disclosure of the information would jeopardize a continuing investigation into the killings.

But Superior Court Judge Leonard Kruse disregarded that argument.

``Somewhere, this has got to end,'' said Kruse. ``The assumption is the files should not be sealed . . . the problem I see here is I don't know why this information is in the search warrants in the first place.''

Legal maneuvering over the withheld information dates to December, when two men were accused of committing the murders. One of them since has been released.

Kruse ordered disclosure of all information relating to an unidentified object referred to in the documents, but said the identity of an uncharged third suspect could continue to be suppressed.

The three victims were Ty McCullough, Ann Rice and JayDee Phillips, whose bodies were found in a pickup on Bainbridge Island.

The people charged with the killings were Douglas Stanfield, of Everett, and Robert Welsh, of Silverdale, who since has been released.

Much of the prosecution's case depends on several, varying descriptions of the crimes provided by Stanfield, who remains a defendant and is in jail.

After confessing, however, Stanfield changed his mind and recanted the information he'd provided; that led prosecutors to release Welsh after he had been held on murder charges for two weeks.

In the newly disclosed documents, Kitsap County deputies told how some of the evidence found at the crime scene included .22-caliber shell casings and shotgun wads, or packing. And the unidentified object was revealed as a shotgun.

In addition, three Federal brand 12-gauge shotgun shells were found in the muddy ground near the rear edge of the driver's door of the truck, said one document. Two 12-gauge shotgun wads were removed from the bodies of the victims, a third wad was found among beer bottles on the floor of the passenger's side and a fourth wad was found a short distance from the truck, the documents said.

Four spent Remington .22-caliber long-rifle shells were found on the ground at the rear of the truck; four more shells were found in the truck and a ninth shell was found in the bed of the truck, the documents said.

In one of Stanfield's statements, he said the third man fired into the victims first, and that he then fired into the dead bodies with the shotgun, which he threw into the mud, where it was later picked up and taken from the scene.

Deputies later recovered an older-model 12-gauge pump shotgun, which had been owned by the unidentified third suspect, at a Lynnwood pawnshop.

That shotgun was sent to a federal firearms laboratory for examination, and a deputy prosecutor said the results of those tests have been received here. The results were not disclosed, however.

The documents show detectives attempted to find a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol pawned by a relative of Douglas Stanfield's, but were unsuccessful.

But later, deputies seized a .22-caliber Ruger handgun from another pawnshop. The third suspect, who has talked extensively with police and went to the pawnshop with them, had mixed up the two pawnshops.

Nothing in the documents released so far shows that the .22-caliber Ruger was used in the killings, however.

Deputy Prosecutor Diane Russell said it is feared the new information will allow witnesses in the case, some of whom she said are out of state, to devise new alibis and hinder the investigation.

But Stanfield's attorney, Eric Lind, said much of the information already is known.

``I just don't see how it would compromise the investigation,'' said Lind.

Stanfield is scheduled to go to trial late this month.