`Coin-Shop Killer' Suspect Dies In Cell

`Coin-shop killer'

suspect dies in cell

ANCHORAGE

Charles T. Sinclair, the man accused of being the ``coin-shop killer'' who committed a string of slayings in Washington and other Western states, died yesterday in jail.

Sinclair, 44, suffered a heart attack at 5:43 a.m. in his cell at Cook Inlet Pre-Trial Facility in Anchorage, said state Corrections Commissioner Susan Humphrey-Barnett.

Sinclair was arrested Aug. 13 near his home about 170 miles northeast of Anchorage. He is a suspect is murders and robberies of coin-shop workers in several states, and he had been fighting extradition to Montana on two counts of homicide and one count of armed robbery.

He also was a suspect in the killings of coin-shop owners in Everett and Spokane, in Vacaville, Calif., and in Kansas City, Mo. He lived for a while near Deming, east of Bellingham, in Whatcom County.