Guilty Plea Nets Life Sentence For Murder Of Elderly Couple

EVERETT - A former Navy submarine crewman accused of murdering a Bothell-area couple pleaded guilty unexpectedly yesterday and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Tommy Metcalf, 33, had been charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the 1989 deaths of Raymond and Evelyn Sawyer, residents of a quiet mobile-home community for senior citizens.

Under an agreement reached yesterday, just as his trial was getting under way, Metcalf pleaded guilty as charged with the understanding that prosecutors would not ask for a death sentence.

Metcalf, who had performed nuclear-weapons-related duties on a Trident submarine before his arrest, entered his plea under a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows defendants to plead guilty without admitting wrongdoing if they believe a jury would find them guilty.

Prosecutors said Metcalf killed the Sawyers when he answered a newspaper ad they placed to sell a motor home. The Sawyers were found suffocated in that motor home, parked in their driveway, last July 1.

The morning before the murders, neighbor Dorothy DeArmand talked with the Sawyers on the telephone, she said, and learned the couple had two prospective buyers for their motor home, including a young man scheduled to see it that day.

The Sawyers wanted to sell the RV and buy a smaller one that would be easier to take on weekend trips.

Prosecutors say Metcalf visited the Sawyers that afternoon, and returned in the evening. A neighbor, concerned that the Sawyers' car door was left open in the rain, called police. Minutes later, the neighbor and his wife reportedly saw a man dragging two bodies into the motor home.

Metcalf originally was questioned and released by a Snohomish County sheriff's deputy responding to a report of a suspicious person that night. He was arrested later when he returned to the house, allegedly with the key to the motor home and the Sawyers' garage-door opener in his pockets.

Jury selection in the case started last week but stalled when Metcalf's attorneys challenged the makeup of the jury pool, saying it wasn't representative.

Larry McKeeman, chief criminal deputy for the Snohomish County prosecutor's office, said that challenge opened a small possibility that charges against Metcalf could be dismissed. He said a decision that new jurors were needed could have delayed the trial long enough that the judge might have ruled Metcalf didn't receive a speedy trial.

McKeeman said his office decided that wasn't a risk worth taking, especially since Metcalf agreed to plead guilty as charged. Under state law, the only two penalties for aggravated first-degree murder are death or life in prison without parole.

Hal Sheets, lead attorney for Metcalf, said his client didn't want to risk letting a jury decide on the death penalty.

``It was a rational, reasonable and considered decision by Mr. Metcalf,'' he said.

Sheets thanked prosecutors for reconsidering their decision on the death penalty, a reconsideration he said was based partly on new information provided during plea negotiations. Sheets declined to say what that information entailed, saying his client authorized him to release it only to prosecutors for purposes of the negotiations.

Friends and family of the Sawyers said they were glad the case was over.

From his home in Dallas, Texas, E.W. ``Tom'' Sawyer, Ray Sawyer's brother, said he thought the death penalty would have been proper, but ``at least we got him (Metcalf) off the streets.''

Stan Long, the Sawyers' accountant and friend, described the couple as ``the salt of the earth.''

Before their deaths, Long helped the Sawyers set up a charitable foundation, called the ROE Foundation (after Raymond O. and Evelyn), to which they willed most of their money.

Long said Ray and Evelyn approached him several years ago, saying they wanted their money to go to needy senior citizens. When the estate is settled, Long estimates the foundation will get about $1 million.

It wasn't the first time the Sawyers had been generous with money.

Tom Sawyer said Ray and Evelyn contributed generously to charities because they never forgot the times when others helped them. For Ray, he said, those times started early.

The Sawyers' mother died when Ray was 6, Tom Sawyer said. By age 8, Ray was self-sufficient, he said, working for Montana homesteaders.

Although Ray's formal education ended in the eighth grade, Tom Sawyer said his brother eventually made his money in real-estate investment.