Judge to hear Colorado man's plea agreement in teacher's killing in Bakken oil patch
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Montana judge will consider a plea agreement Wednesday that calls for a Colorado man to plead guilty to killing a high school teacher and burying her in a shallow grave in the Bakken oil patch.
The disappearance of Sherry Arnold when she went out for a jog in January 2012 shook this town of 6,200 near the North Dakota border and shone a harsh light on the darker side of the oil boom on the Northern Plains.
Michael Keith Spell, 25, plans to plead guilty to deliberate homicide in Arnold's death. He is due to appear Wednesday before District Judge Richard Simonton.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The plea deal with prosecutors filed Tuesday calls for a 100-year sentence for Spell and dismissal of an attempted kidnapping charge.
The plea agreement ends with where Spell would serve his sentence. Prosecutors want the Parachute, Colorado, man to serve his time in prison. Richland County attorney Mike Weber said he would oppose any sentence short of prison.
"We'll be arguing for Montana state prison. That's our position," Weber said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Defense attorney Al Avignone said he will ask for Spell to be sentenced to the state health department, which could allow him to serve his time in a facility for the mentally disabled. They also reserved the right to ask for a lesser sentence.
"He's going to be intellectually disabled until the day he dies," Avignone said. "But that doesn't mean he can't learn and he can't learn life skills."
Arnold, a mother of two and popular teacher in close-knit Sidney, was killed just blocks from her house after going out for jog on Jan. 7, 2012.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Her body was found more than two months later, buried in a shallow grave in a once-quiet part of North Dakota that over the past decade has become one of the country's largest oil plays.
Experts for the state and defense have testified that Spell is mildly mentally disabled. He can barely read or write and has a history of low IQ scores. Those findings prompted prosecutors to drop their pursuit of the death penalty.
Accomplice Lester Van Waters pleaded guilty last year in a deal that called for him to testify against Spell if the case went to trial. Waters in turn would be spared the death penalty and receive 100 years in prison.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He has not yet been sentenced.
Court documents say that just before Arnold's murder, Spell and Waters traveled to Sidney from Colorado, using crack cocaine throughout their journey. They told friends and family they were searching for work in the Bakken oil fields along the Montana-North Dakota border.
Authorities have said Spell choked or otherwise asphyxiated Arnold during an attempted abduction.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Spell's attorneys did not dispute that he was involved in the events leading to Arnold's death. Yet they maintained there is no conclusive evidence he was the one who killed her.