“THE WRONG MAN,” CONTINUED... And Riley doesn’t credit detectives with clearing him. The assault charge was dropped only after Witness B called detectives back on Jan. 28 and said that she made a mistake and Joe Riley was the wrong guy. A friend showed the witnesses pictures of someone else named Jamie Peterson, records state, and as soon as the women saw it, their hearts sank, now believing Peterson was the guy. Detective Melville knew of Peterson. In fact, according to Melville’s investigation notes, he already knew Peterson was a dead ringer for Riley. There was a receipt from Ichabod’s the night of Jarman’s death in Peterson’s name, and Melville had looked him up on social media and compared him to Riley, noting the similarities. Peterson, 39, did not respond to calls, texts or voicemails seeking comment for this article. Nor did his friends and family members. At Peterson’s Spokane Valley home, a block away from an elementary school, a woman answered and said he wasn’t there. The Inlander left a note and business card there with contact information. Shortly before this article was published, Peterson blocked an Inlander reporter from seeing his Facebook and blocked the reporter’s phone number. A year ago, on Jan. 29, a day after Witness B pointed to Peterson, Melville called Peterson. The detective had found his phone number from a report that Peterson was in a bar fight months earlier. Peterson agreed to meet with Melville at a pizza place around lunchtime. Peterson acknowledged he was at Ichabod’s bar the night of the fight but said he left just after midnight, when his receipt was printed. In fact, phone records pegged him in the area of Ichabod’s as late as 2:03 am, minutes after the assault of Jarman. Then Melville noticed something else: A “lasered off” tattoo on his left arm, exactly where one of the witnesses described one being on the suspect. As investigators narrowed in on Peterson, they discovered that his involvement was something of an open secret among those connected to the bars near the crime scene. A bartender at nearby Sullivan Scoreboard answered a call from Melville in March. When she was told Melville was seeking someone who was involved in the fight, she replied, “You mean Jamie?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Wilson Criscione has been a staff writer at the Inlander for five years, examining systemic issues in education, foster care, criminal justice and homelessness. He can be reached at 509-235-0634 ext. 282 or at wilsonc@inlander.com.
Chad Kemp, a bouncer there who agreed to an interview with the Inlander, told Melville he didn’t see what happened that night, but he heard about the incident shortly afterward. He says multiple people told him within a day that it was Peterson. One of those people was apparently an eyewitness. Melville contacted that witness in March. The witness described to Melville how he saw Peterson on Dec. 29 standing over Jarman, saying something like, “He wanted to start shit, he wanted to keep running his mouth.” When the Inlander contacted this witness, however, he denied ever speaking to a detective. Nobody with information on Peterson, including this witness, volunteered to tell law enforcement. At least nobody but the two women allegedly in the car with him and Jarman that night.
Joe Riley and his wife Shalee in the tattoo shop that he owns. Kemp says it’s possible people are afraid of Peterson. Kemp knew him as someone who could cause problems at the bar. Peterson also has a felony on his record for making harassing phone calls more than a decade ago to his then-estranged wife. According to court documents, he threatened to hurt his wife’s dad if Peterson’s assault rifle wasn’t returned, then later “threatened to kill” her entire family. Peterson’s father, meanwhile, is Lee Peterson, an attorney with Craig Swapp & Associates, a prominent law firm specializing in personal injury cases. Lee Peterson did not respond to multiple phone calls and messages from the Inlander. With Riley released and his charges dismissed, the investigation into Peterson slowed to a crawl, as detectives waited for DNA results from Witness B’s car. Then, in August, Melville collected a DNA swab from Peterson, comparing it with the DNA sample found in the car. It was a match. Peterson had denied knowing those two women or Jarman, but his DNA had been found inside the same car that Jarman and his attacker are seen on video exiting at 2 am. Considering there were now three witnesses identifying Peterson as the man who punched Jarman, along with DNA evidence and phone records proving he was there, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office recommended that Peterson be charged with second-degree manslaughter. It wasn’t enough. The Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office declined to charge Peterson. The case was closed. County Prosecutor Larry Haskell tells the Inlander that “in this case, the evidence supported a likely mutual combat or self-defense scenario… in addition, the prosecutor must evaluate potential problems with the case and make a judgment call on all foreseeable issues including credibility of the state’s case.” Haskell did not answer follow-up questions asking if, after Riley was arrested and charged, new evidence supported a self-defense scenario for Peterson. He also did not say whether Riley’s initial arrest, or the investigation itself, hurt the credibility of the state’s case.
LYING TO PROTECT
When her husband went to jail for a crime he didn’t commit, Shalee Riley didn’t know what to tell the kids. She had to come up with something, so she said he had an emergency business call and he had to go away.
YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
“I had to really hold it together,” she says. “It’s sad. I had to lie.” The whole experience has shaken their sense of security to this day. Joe now sleeps on the couch, in an effort to protect the family, and he often wakes up in a panic. They don’t go out much, and not just because of the pandemic. They feel like they might get framed for a crime. “We don’t trust people. Things are not the same,” Shalee says. “We can’t believe this happened, and the justice system is like this.” Joe Riley says that he will still go to the grocery store and hear people call him a murderer. He’s always explaining himself. His tattoo business has suffered. He constantly wonders why this happened to him. He looked up Peterson, and he isn’t so sure they look that much alike. Riley gets angry thinking about him at all. “If it was self-defense, why wouldn’t he turn himself in? Why did he willingly and knowingly let me sit in jail and make me take the fall and almost lose my entire life, if he’s so freaking innocent?” Riley says. Jarman’s family has similar questions. His sister, Jami Humphries, doesn’t understand why Riley was charged but Peterson wasn’t. “The thing that frustrates me the most is them saying that it was self-defense,” she says. “I believed in the system until this.” Jarman’s loved ones are still seeking justice. They won’t accept that the case is closed with no charges. His mom, Janet, says she still cries for him every day. Maybe he shouldn’t have been out drinking that night, she says, but she’s pretty sure he wasn’t planning on getting killed doing it. “He was a good guy. Troubled. But a good guy,” she says. “He was getting better all the time.” His kids, 6 and 8 years old, never got to move into the Spokane Valley house with their mom and dad. Clark instead moved them back to Soap Lake. They miss their dad. They were told that he was in an accident and died. She hasn’t told the boys what really happened yet. “I know when they’re age appropriate, I’m going to have to tell them the actual truth,” Clark says. How will she tell them their dad’s killer got away with it? n
JANUARY 28, 2021 INLANDER 23