Hauser man faces 30 years for slaying

COEUR d'ALENE — A Hauser man faces up to 30 years in prison after filing an Alford plea to killing a Spokane woman last summer.

Patrick McGhee, 47, entered the Alford plea — an admission that the state has enough evidence to convict him without claiming responsibility — for voluntary manslaughter and destruction of evidence in connection to the death of 55-year-old Kelly Sallee in June of 2015. Kootenai County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jed Whitaker told The Press Wednesday that the agreement guarantees McGhee will spend at least 15 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.

"After speaking with her family in depth, this agreement just takes any uncertainty out of it and, we believe, puts him in the penitentiary for a long time," Whitaker added. "It's an agreement that protects the public."

On June 11, 2015, a passerby spotted Sallee's body, partially submerged in the slough just north of Newman Arm Road in Hauser Lake. The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office worked with major crimes detectives from the Spokane Police Department to investigate the death, and arrested McGhee for his involvement in Sallee's death on June 25, 2015.

Shortly after his arrest, a grand jury indicted McGhee on charges of second-degree murder, failure to notify authorities of a death, felony destruction of evidence, procurement of prostitution and trafficking in prostitution.

A Kootenai County District Court judge ruled the failure to notify authorities of a death charge was unconstitutional and, according to Whitaker, dropped the charge. The same judge, he added, also separated the prostitution charges into two individual cases.

"So we were looking at three cases before today happened," Whitaker said.

As part of the plea agreement, Whitaker said he added a deadly weapon enhancement to the voluntary manslaughter charge because McGhee used an electrical cord while committing the crime. The enhancement, he added, could add another 15 years to McGhee's sentence, bringing the grand total to 30 years in prison.

McGhee is scheduled to be sentenced in Kootenai County District Court on May 4.