I covered a lot of crime and criminals when I worked at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, and two have always stood out: serial killer Joseph Duncan and double murderer Justin Crenshaw. Duncan died in federal prison in 2021 while on death row for kidnapping and murdering 9-year-old Dylan Groene in Idaho. Crenshaw is serving two life sentences for murdering 18-year-old Sarah Clark and 20-year-old Tanner Pehl in Spokane in 2008. Duncan has more national notoriety than Crenshaw, but Crenshaw has the same depraved darkness to him and I felt it firsthand when I interviewed him in jail five months after his arrest. He told me then he was innocent — “I didn’t do it” — but his defense in his trial two years later was that he did do it, he just didn’t pre-meditate it because he was drunk and has a rare alcohol disorder that turns him violent. Fifteen years after he was sentenced, Crenshaw returned to the courthouse in Spokane on Monday (October 13) for a new sentencing hearing under a Washington state law regarding youthful offenders. The law was enacted in 2021 after the Washington Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to impose a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole on anyone who committed aggravated murder between the ages of 18 and 21, without considering their youthfulness at the time of their crimes. The murder case against Crenshaw was one of the first cases I followed from start to finish. I was the night breaking news reporter the day Sarah and Tanner were found dead, and I went to a vigil for Sarah in a park in north Spokane and wrote an article that published in the newspaper the next day. I wrote several other articles about the case in the weeks that followed, and I regularly checked the filings at the courthouse and went to the hearings that culminated in Crenshaw’s trial in 2010. I met Sarah’s and Tanner’s family members, and because Spokane is a big small town, I’d sometimes see Tanner’s brothers out at the bars. Sarah and Tanner’s murders have always stayed with me, just as my conversation with Crenshaw in the Spokane County Jail has. I’ve always thought he’s exactly where he belongs just based on the murders, but he amassed a record in prison that included killing his cellmate and attempting to murder another inmate. He also joined the Aryan Nations white supremacist gang, and his violence in prison and before prison demonstrates an infatuation with knives and stabbings. Still, Crenshaw, now 37, insisted on pursuing a new sentence, so Sarah’s and Tanner’s friends and family returned to court on Monday (and again on Tuesday) to tell the judge why he should never be released from prison. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Dean Chuang cited Crenshaw’s violence and his apparent lack of remorse for Sarah’s and Tanner’s murders when he resentenced him to the same sentence he’s been serving since 2010: Life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering Sarah, and life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering Tanner. It hardly seemed like a tough call, just based on Crenshaw’s prison record alone. But Crenshaw took issue with Judge Chaung’s approach and his decision. Crenshaw told the judge to re-read the transcript of his comments when the judge said his comments showed a lack of remorse, then he muttered “fucking joke” as Chaung continued speaking. As deputies led him out of the courtroom, he told Chaung, “Don't forget to wipe your ass with that, Your Honor.” #law #crime #court #legal #truecrime - @meghannmcuniff