Woman Sentenced For Torture

SPOKANE - Eunice Eickhoff was sentenced to 20 years in prison for torturing and raping her common-law husband with a broomstick.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt also banned contact between Eickhoff and her victim for life, calling the crimes "deliberate and senseless cruelty." Sypolt gave the same sentence in August to Eickhoff's accomplice, Theresa Spickler-Bowe.

The normal sentence for the crimes is 12 years, and Sypolt denied a defense request for leniency.

Eickhoff and the man had spent 12 years together in a common-law marriage that the woman described during the trial as happy.

Eickhoff, Spickler-Bowe and the man, whose name was not released, were described during the trial as best friends when they moved to Spokane last fall from New Jersey.

But the women began abusing him and made him shovel snow in his bare feet, broke his nose, cheekbone and ribs and burned him with a spatula and butter knife.

In January the women raped him and kicked him out of the

apartment.