Wednesday, May 27, 2009 · Last updated 6:33 p.m. PT
Thompson convicted of first-degree murder
Since his first string of rape convictions more than two decades ago, those whose lives have been battered by Curtis Thompson have struggled to put a name to the Seattle man's cruelty.
The term most come back to during his three recent trials -- a series that ended Thursday with a guilty verdict against him in the 2004 murder of Ravenna neighborhood mother of two Deborah Byars -- is, simply, evil.
And that was Nanci Newhall's take following the verdict against the man who stabbed her sister to death with a screwdriver.
"He's just evil," Newhall said. "He's not like everyone else. He's mean, he's cruel, he's sadistic, and he's a coward."
Thursday's first-degree murder guilty verdict marked the end of what was Thompson's last trial in King County Superior Court. It and the mandatory life sentence it carried were the final resolution offered Thompson's many living victims, who've remained a fixture Judge Palmer Robinson's courtroom during the past six months through the rapist's recent trials.
The three cases all stem from a week-long spree in May 2004 during which Thompson raped one woman at her Eastlake home, attempted to sexually assault two others at a University District apartment's elevator, and killed Byars. As in Byars' case, juries returned guilty verdicts in each assault.
Thompson's trip to a Department of Corrections cell following a sentencing hearing next month will mark a homecoming of sorts for the 47-year-old.
Following a 1985 arrest, Thompson spent 18 years in prison after a jury convicted him on four counts of rape. Those extraordinarily violent assaults were similar to the 2004 attack during which Thompson raped a woman for hours, then doused her with bleach in an effort to cover up his crime. Byars' death was equally violent.
Given an opportunity to confine Thompson indefinitely as a sexually violent predator, a King County jury declined to have him committed in 2003. He was back behind bars little more than a year later when he was caught attempting to assault two young women.
Thompson, an imposing man made small by a jail restraint chair, remained defiant Wednesday after being dragged to court against his will. As he has at nearly every opportunity during the five-year prosecution, Thompson berated his own attorneys, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O'Toole, and those gathered to see him tried.
Like Palmer, defense attorneys John Hicks and Robert Taub, O'Toole had been working Thompson's case for years. As the murder prosecutor of 15 years embraced the victims and their families, the relief at the case's resolution was obvious on their faces and his.
"You know, the community just got a little bit safer today," O'Toole said.
For his part, Hicks said he plans to take a vacation.
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