February 23, 2006

By J. JACOB EDEL
Contributing Writer

Confounding uncertainties surrounding the fatal beating of a homeless man prevented a jury from convicting a couple of second-degree murder last Wednesday.

Sixteen months after they were charged with the killing of Jeffrey T. Thompson, Shirin Navvab Galinkin and her boyfriend, David Wayne Pulcino, were released from the county jail.

According to skeptical members of the jury, the prosecution failed to resolve misgivings about the altercation that caused Thompson’s death, even though it located the couple within the general area and provided DNA evidence that they interacted with Thompson the night he died.

“ [The defense] never really created any doubt in my mind. It was that the state didn’t prove its case,” said one of the jurors after the trial.

Thompson, 57, lived along the banks of the Cedar River in Maple Valley and was found dead in the snow next to the ashes of a campfire in January 2004. After a lengthy investigation, King County Sheriff’s detectives discovered Galinkin and Pulcino were drinking heavily with Thompson the night he was murdered.

In statements recorded by the police and read before the jury by detectives, the couple admitted after they had been arrested that they got in a fight with Thompson.

However, both denied delivering the fatal blows.

Pulcino described the altercation they had with Thompson before the jury. He testified the trio stood next to the fire pit, sharing rum liqueur and malt liquor, talking affably until Thompson learned of the couple’s race.

Pulcino, whose mother is an Eskimo from the Yup’ik Tribe, remembered Thompson saying he liked Alaskan Natives because they welcomed him in and gave him a fishing job many years ago, but that Thompson adamantly displayed an aversion for natives “from the Lower 48.”

“ When it came to Shirin, he said he didn’t like them,” Pulcino told the jury. “He said he didn’t like them and that he came from a long line of savage killers.

“ He was talking about his race.”

A shoving fight between Galinkin and Thompson followed. Pulcino said he attempted to break it up but backhanded Thompson’s face instead before he was hit over the head with a rock and knocked out. When he awoke, he saw Shirin kicking Thompson’s head while he grabbed at her legs. When Pulcino regained his strength, he got up and ended the fight.

“ He looked fine. He didn’t look like he does in those pictures,” Pulcino said of Thompson’s condition the last time he saw him.

Pulcino’s testimony aside, another perplexing detail before the jury was the crime scene. Thompson was found at a ravaged campsite among a multitude of footprints and dog tracks in a frequented park, yet police were not contacted until after 2:30 p.m. the day after the murder. Plus, other testimonies made it clear that Galinkin and Pulcino may not have been the last to interact with Thompson.

Sven Olson, a former Maple Valley resident, testified he remembered going for a walk past the campsite with his wife and daughter the night Thompson was killed. Olson said he heard shouts of profanity and approached a man with “long bushy hair,” asking him to quiet down because his young daughter was there. He doesn’t think it was Thompson or Pulcino.

Also, Dayne Carley, the Maple Valley resident who called the police after he found Thompson, testified his dogs never neared the crime scene, yet pictures taken by police showed several dog prints around the evidence.

More skepticism arose from Detective Kathy Decker’s testimony. Decker, a tracking expert with the Sheriff’s department, found a “partial print” of a shoe next to Thompson’s head. Decker guessed the mark was left while someone kicked Thompson. Defense counsel noted the print was too big to be Galinkin’s and too small to be Pulcino’s.

Finally, the medical examiner testified that a piece of firewood found nearby was probably the blunt object that fatally struck Thompson’s head, yet Pulcino testified they searched for things to burn while they were drinking with Thompson.

“ We would have thrown it in the fire if it was there,” Pulcino told the jury.

Pulcino also testified he never could have killed Thompson because he understood Thompson’s situation. Both he and Galinkin have been homeless before and have had their troubles with alcohol. Though the judge did not allow it to be mentioned in court, Galinkin was caught stealing a four-pack of 16-oz. beer cans and a sandwich from a Tacoma Safeway in 2003. When the store and police attempted to apprehend her, she resisted violently and was arrested, charged, and pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery, second-degree assault, and second-degree assault of an officer.

“ It really irritates me that the only time the state takes any interest in people that are disadvantaged and left out by the system is cases where they are perceived as a victim and they want to punish someone else who is disadvantaged,” John Randolph, Galinkin’s attorney, said after the trial.

Since half of the hung jury remained unconvinced by the state’s prosecution, they agreed with Randolph and refused to convict the couple of beating the homeless Thompson and leaving him to freeze.

“ It was a difficult decision, and I feel good about the outcome,” a juror said after the trial. n