State v. Parr

Shortly after midnight on November 28, 1976, police officers were summoned to a rural address in Spokane County, where they found the petitioner standing in the driveway, crying "Help me! Help me!" When asked what the trouble was, he pointed toward the house and said, "Inside." They found there the body of a woman, lying in bed, with a bullet hole in her temple. An ashtray and a gun lay beside her, and a cigarette which she had evidently held in her hand or in her mouth at the moment of death was lying on her chest.

The defendant was in an extremely emotional state but he was able to tell the…