HUCKLEBERRIES: Joe Murphy: An open case

Joe Murphy was the type of newcomer that locals appreciate.

He moved here to enjoy our outdoors, embrace community values, join worthy organizations, such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Hospice, and make friends.

Close friend Joe Pike viewed North Idaho in two eras: “before Murph and after Murph,” adding: “After Murph, the music was better, the friends were better, everything was better.”

Chief among the 43-year-old’s passions was hiking with his yellow lab, Newt, on Tubbs Hill and Mineral Ridge, near Lake Coeur d’Alene’s Beauty Bay.

On April 26, 2000, Joe’s body was found by another hiker 200 yards up the zigzag Mineral Ridge Trail, stabbed multiple times in the chest and extremities. The shaken woman flagged down motorist Marybel Mogilefsky of Harrison, who contacted police.

Despite an all-out search by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, the killer was never caught. And the case remains open.

Six hikers on the trail at the time of Joe’s murder provided a description of a possible suspect: a white male, 30 to 40 years old, 5 feet 10 inches, 230 to 240 pounds, with dark hair and mustache, wire-rim glasses and “a big gut and puffy cheeks.”

A composite drawing of the suspect was made, but KCSO Detective Gerry Wiedenhoff admitted to the Coeur d’Alene Press that positive identification would be difficult. He said, “There are at least 60 to 70 guys out there that look like the drawing.”

Joe Pike, who worked with the victim at Unitech Composites of Hayden Lake, believed that his friend was caught off-guard by a stranger and didn’t have time to defend himself.

Pike noted that Murphy, who played hockey, “was a big guy; he wasn’t a mild, meek guy.”

A private investigator said, “Joe didn’t have the skills to make enemies.” And he speculated that road rage may have been a motive since the victim was a notoriously slow driver.

“The only thing I know that anyone could have hated about Joe in five minutes was his driving,” the private eye said.

Joe discovered Coeur d’Alene in 1989 while traveling across the country from his home in Orange County, Calif., according to a Press report. Before his vacation was over, he had a job lined up and was planning to move here.

At Joe’s funeral service, Father Roger LaChance of St. Pius X Catholic Church told nearly 300 mourners that they may never know or understand what happened that day on Mineral Ridge, adding: “But you know why you are here. You loved Joe Murphy, and you were loved.”

Buck stops here

As Coeur d’Alene mayor or a restaurateur, Woody McEvers doesn’t pass the buck.

Thirty years ago, he faced a potential business disaster when a waitress at his old Rustler’s Roost restaurant on Sherman Avenue was diagnosed with hepatitis A. As a result, his customers for the first 10 days of April 1995 were urged to gather en masse for inoculations covering two days at Panhandle Health District.

And Woody was there at the door to meet them and apologize.

According to the Coeur d’Alene Press of April 22, 1995, Woody greeted each of the 500 in line for the immune serum globulin shots.

“Are you upset?” he would ask. “Anything you want to talk about?”

He assured two small siblings that the shots wouldn’t hurt: “If I’m wrong,” he said, “you come back out and give me a good, hard pinch, OK?”

Marie Rau, a PHD nurse, said Woody stepped forward immediately when the hepatitis A case was diagnosed. And he paid $15,000 for the shots. Apologies accepted.

Towering inferno

F.W. Woolworth’s five-and-dime was a thriving store on Sherman Avenue when manager Julie Crnich locked its doors at 5:45 p.m. Saturday, April 26, 1980. But the building would be nothing but a smoldering ruin by midnight.

An hour and 12 minutes after the business shut, Doug Nelson, who was dining next door at Charlie Nipp’s restaurant, The Landing, noticed a possible fire and went to investigate with cook Cindy White.

By the time firemen reached the scene, minutes later, assistant fire chief Jim Davis decided the building was gone. And directed efforts toward containing the inferno, which shot flames 200 feet high and reached temperatures of 1,800 to 2,000 degrees

Firefighters from the city, county and Post Falls poured 5,000 gallons of water per minute into the burning building to save adjacent businesses. Meanwhile, city police and sheriff’s deputies struggled to keep the crowd back.

Muttered one officer: “The whole damn town’s here.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: The seasons turn and now once more/the grass grows green outside his door/and brings the question many fear:/will that old lawn mower start this year? — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“The Mystery of Spring”).

• Do You Remember … the Fatima Crusaders from the offshoot Coeur d’Alene convent in the 1970s? The high schoolers were modest and poor. But they let their hair down at times. For example, they played softball at McEuen Field. And Judith Osterberg Sylte remembers them swimming in Rathdrum Creek. “They swam fully clothed. It always amazed me that the girls’ long, voluminous skirts didn’t drag them under.”

• Saved! The Mullan Tree remains with us on display at the new Museum of North Idaho -- at least the trunk does with the date “July 4, 1861,” carved in it. It was the last mile marker of the Mullan Trail, a military wagon road cut through the forest. On that Independence Day, the work crew got the day off to celebrate on what is now Fourth of July Pass.

• Milestone: On April 17, I completed my fifth year as the Huckleberries columnist for the Coeur d’Alene Press. And that means I’ve spent a month longer at The Press than I did as an editor of Duane Hagadone’s Kalispell (Mont.) Daily Interlake (1977-1982). I’ve enjoyed both places. And don’t plan to stop yet.

• Rankin Memorial: On April 27, 2005, county commissioners announced that the veterans’ plaza at the courthouse would be renamed after Ron Rankin on the coming Memorial Day. A Korean combat veteran, commissioner and property tax activist, Rankin guided the construction of the remarkable plaza. It’s a must-see if you haven’t.

Parting shot

In Coeur d’Alene, it took a Fox to raise a Children’s Village — Dr. Anne Fox-Clarkson.

Decades ago, Anne, then Winton School principal, promised two horribly abused children — Becky and Donald — that she would build a haven for them. And that’s how Canopy Village (aka Children’s Village) came to be.

Organized in 1983 by Anne and two Winton parents — Carol Rankin and Kathy Curran — Canopy Village launched a $500,000 fundraising campaign two years later to buy 10-30 acres of land and build two cottages to protect 12 kids each, from ages 0 to 18.

Some scoffed after the announcement April 27, 1985. But Canopy Village now has two houses — Moyer and Miller — and has helped 2,000 kids, including Becky and Donald.

Along the way, Anne served as the superintendent of Post Falls schools and was elected to a term (1995-98) as Idaho superintendent of public instruction.

But she never lost sight of her first love: a special place to protect children.

• • •

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.

    Murphy
  

    Murphy
  

    Woody McEvers, of the Rustler’s Roost on Sherman Avenue, greets customers in April 1995.
  

    Spectators on a rooftop watch firemen battle the Woolworth fire April 26, 1980.
  

    On April 29, 1990, Dorothy Dahlgren, director of the Museum of North Idaho, and Ranger Don Bright were shown with the Mullan Tree trunk.
  

    Cpl. Ron Rankin (standing, far left), was among the Marine Reservists en route home in 1951 after nine months of combat in Korea.
  

    At the 2012 Children’s Village banquet, Dr. Anne Fox-Clarkson, center, presented Realtor Sharon Culbreth, right, with the organization's Golden Heart Award.