BILLINGS, Mont. — Prosecutors on Friday filed murder charges and said they intend to seek the death penalty against two Colorado men accused of kidnapping a Montana teacher whose body was discovered in North Dakota two months after she disappeared.
Lester Van Waters Jr., 48, and Michael Keith Spell, 22, are accused of grabbing Sherry Arnold off a street in Sidney, Mont., on Jan. 7 while she was on a pre-dawn run.
Waters and Spell — who came from Parachute looking for work in the booming Bakken oil fields — were arrested about a week after Arnold’s disappearance and initially charged with aggravated kidnapping.
An amended complaint filed by Richland County prosecutor Mike Weber on Friday charges each with one count of deliberate homicide and one count of attempted kidnapping. The aggravated kidnapping charge was dropped.
An affidavit filed in the case includes an alleged jailhouse confession by Spell that he choked Arnold and then held her face underwater to make sure she was dead.
Spell told another inmate he and Waters were high on drugs at the time and suggested the kidnapping came about because “Waters wanted to have sex,” prosecutors allege. The affidavit doesn’t say whether Arnold was sexually assaulted.
Previous court documents included a claim by Spell that Waters had choked Arnold in the back of his car. The new documents say she was killed almost immediately after encountering Spell during her run.
“Spell said Sherry Arnold was jogging on a path and he was walking approaching her,” the affidavit says. “Spell said Sherry said ‘Hi’ as they passed each other. Spell said he turned around and speared Sherry in the back of the head and knocked her down. Spell said he choked her out.”
Arnold’s body was not found until late March. Court documents filed Friday indicate it was Waters who led them to her shallow grave after Spell’s attempts to find the location were unsuccessful.
Her body was found along Highway 1804 near Williston, N.D., along a shelter belt, a line of trees used by farmers as a shield from the wind.
