The Shellye Stark murder case ended with Stark serving 25 years in Washington state prison for the December 2007 shooting death of her estranged husband, Dale Stark, at their South Hill home in Spokane. She was convicted of first-degree murder twice: once in 2009, and again in 2012 after the Washington Court of Appeals reversed the original verdict over flawed jury instructions. Both juries rejected her claim that she shot Dale in self-defense as a battered wife.
What Happened the Night of the Shooting
Dale Robert Stark, 48, was shot inside the couple’s home at 1620 South Maple Street in the early morning hours of December 9, 2007. He and Shellye had been married since 1984 but were estranged. They had signed a marriage settlement agreement in September 2007 to begin divorce proceedings, and Shellye had moved to California.
Two days before the shooting, Shellye obtained a temporary restraining order barring Dale from the home. On the night of December 8, she was at the house with the couple’s teenage son, Christopher, and her nephew, Dale Johnson, who had been asked to serve the order. Johnson had also brought Shellye a handgun belonging to her mother, Denise Johnson, and a shotgun of his own. The firearms had originally been carried from North Idaho by Shellye’s sister, Karen Jachetta, who was hospitalized after a car accident on the way to Spokane.
Dale Stark returned home unexpectedly around 2:00 a.m. Johnson served him with the restraining order inside the house, and Dale became angry. According to Shellye’s account, he charged at her in the kitchen, threatened to kill her, and reached toward a knife on the counter. She fired a handgun she had kept in her purse. Dale suffered five bullet wounds, four of them in his back. Prosecutors said Shellye then walked up to him as he lay dying and shot him in the groin. Johnson and Christopher had fled the house just before the shooting. Shellye called 911 afterward.
The Two Sides of the Case
Shellye Stark was charged with first-degree premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The conspiracy count named Karen Jachetta and Denise Johnson as alleged co-conspirators, though neither was ever charged.
Prosecutors Mark Cipolla and Larry Haskell called Stark a “calculated killer.” Lead investigator Detective Kip Hollenbeck described the shooting as “basically an ambush,” pointing to Stark arranging firearms in advance, traveling from California, and setting up the encounter. The state argued the restraining order itself was a device to provoke a confrontation that would give Shellye a pretext to shoot. Prosecutors also contended her allegations of domestic violence only surfaced in counseling sessions after Dale’s death.
The defense presented Stark’s testimony describing 23 years of physical, verbal, mental, and sexual abuse. She said Dale had thrown a chair at her, pushed her to the ground, and once held his knee on her throat until she lost consciousness. She testified he forced her into prostitution early in the marriage and used her earnings to pay gambling debts. Psychologist Dr. Lenore E. Walker testified Stark suffered from battered women’s syndrome, which the defense argued explained why she armed herself. Prosecutors countered that Stark had been working as a high-priced internet escort in California under the name “Nikita Jennifer,” earning substantial sums, and was a willing participant rather than a coerced victim.
First Conviction and the Reversal on Appeal
On March 18, 2009, a Spokane County jury convicted Stark of both first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On April 30, 2009, Judge Tari Eitzen sentenced her to 610 months, nearly 51 years, in prison.
On December 16, 2010, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division Three, unanimously reversed both convictions. The appellate court identified two errors. The trial court had given the jury an “aggressor instruction” telling jurors Stark could not claim self-defense if she provoked or commenced the fight. The appeals court found the instruction was unsupported by the evidence, since Stark was hiding in the kitchen when her husband arrived and charged at her, and obtaining a restraining order did not amount to legal provocation. The instruction, the court held, prevented Stark from fully asserting self-defense and relieved the state of its burden to disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Separately, the conspiracy instruction failed to name the specific co-conspirators alleged in the charging document, creating a variance between the charge and what the jury was asked to decide.
The case was remanded. In May 2011, the Washington Supreme Court declined the prosecutor’s petition to review the appellate decision, and retrial went forward.
The Second Trial and 25-Year Sentence
The second trial concluded in September 2012. The jury again convicted Stark of first-degree murder but this time acquitted her of conspiracy. Deputy Prosecutor Cipolla again called the killing “cold, calculated murder,” emphasizing four shots to the back and a final shot to the groin. The defense again presented the battered-wife theory, and the jury again rejected it.
On October 2, 2012, Judge Eitzen sentenced Stark to 25 years in prison, far below the original 51-year term. The conspiracy acquittal removed one of the counts that had driven the longer sentence. Judge Eitzen said 25 years was the least she could impose under Washington’s mandatory sentencing guidelines and chose the low end of the range at the request of Christopher Stark, who asked the court for mercy for his mother. The judge said the shorter term would give Stark an opportunity to spend time with her son after release. Stark was 47 at sentencing and would be approximately 71 before becoming eligible for release.
Brian Moore’s Guilty Plea
Brian L. Moore, 42, identified as Shellye’s boyfriend, had been arrested in Orange County, California, on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Prosecutors described him as a “puppet master” who helped plan the killing, traveled to Spokane to scout Dale Stark’s home, and helped draft the restraining order used to provoke the confrontation. They also called him Shellye’s “pimp.”
The day after Stark’s sentencing, Moore pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He entered an Alford plea, maintaining his innocence while acknowledging the state had enough evidence to convict, to avoid a potential sentence exceeding 25 years. Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt sentenced him to 10 years in prison with credit for nearly three years already served.
The Second Appeal
Stark appealed her second conviction. On October 7, 2014, the Court of Appeals, Division Three, largely affirmed. The court rejected her argument that the trial judge violated her right to a public trial by asking spectators not to come and go during closing arguments, finding the request was aimed at minimizing disruption rather than closing the courtroom. The court also upheld the admission of rebuttal testimony from Detective Hollenbeck that the defense had challenged as an impermissible opinion on Stark’s truthfulness, ruling it was a permissible inference from the interview evidence. The state conceded, and the court agreed, that a community custody condition requiring Stark to undergo a mental status evaluation was unsupported by the record, and the court remanded with instructions to strike that condition. The murder conviction stood.
Who Was Not Charged
Two women named in the original conspiracy count as co-conspirators, Shellye’s sister Karen Jachetta and her mother Denise Johnson, were never charged. Christopher Stark, a teenager on the night of the shooting, later received more than $400,000 in life insurance proceeds as beneficiary of his father’s policy and was not accused of wrongdoing in the killing.