Three held in meth-related killing in Spokane County in 2005

SPOKANE — Three men have been jailed in the methamphetamine-related shooting death of a man whose remains were found by wood cutters in a slash pile in south Spokane County, his feet bound with jumper cables.

Carlton J. Hritsco, 26, was arrested Monday morning, Theodore M. Kosewicz, 38, on March 1 and Levoy Goff Burnham, 37, on Feb. 23, all for investigation of aggravated first-degree murder and kidnapping in the attack on Sebastian Lee Esquibel, 25, sheriff's deputies said.

Bail was set at $1 million on each of the three.

Kosewicz and Burnham appeared before a judge Friday, the same day an arrest warrant was issued for Hritsco. He was stopped three days later by members of the Eastern Washington Joint Fugitive Task Force as he drove his brother's pickup away from a house, according to a sheriff's office news release.

The case arose after the decomposed remains of Esquibel, who was married and had two small children, were found on Jan. 16, 2006. Investigators found he had been shot in the head the previous June.

Witnesses and informants subsequently said Esquibel, who had an extensive criminal record, had taken $800 that was going to be used to buy meth, according to documents filed in court.

Before being killed, Esquibel was taken to a fifth-wheel trailer three blocks north of Rogers High School in Spokane, stripped to his underwear and severely beaten as Burnham tried to find the cash, witnesses told authorities.

One witness, Amber Johnson, told investigators she drove Burnham, Kosewicz and Hritsco with Esquibel, bound and beaten, in a 1991 Ford Aerostar van, to a number of places where Burnham looked in vain for the money, according to the court filings.

She said she wound up driving to a remote area near Fairfield, south of the city, where Burnham and Kosewicz left the van with Esquibel, then returned by themselves after she heard a gunshot, investigators wrote.

The money was owed to Hritsco, who also provided the pistol used in the killing, sheriff's Detective James E. Dresback said.