‘First dog I’ve pet in 21 years’

Don Paradis wanted to do something normal after escaping execution three times during his 21 years as an Idaho prisoner — 14 years on Death Row.

So, he asked a friend for permission to pet his Yellow Labrador Retriever, named Buddy.

“This is the first dog I’ve pet in 21 years,” Paradis told the Coeur d’Alene Press.

On April 10, 2001, Donald Manuel Paradis, then 52, was freed at the Kootenai County Courthouse by the judge who originally sentenced him to death for murder: Gary Haman.

In the end, the former Gypsy Joker biker, known as Red Rider, pleaded guilty to a felony in helping dispose of the bodies of Scott Currier and Kimberly Palmer in June 1980. The maximum sentence for that crime is five years — or a quarter of the time he served.

His attorney, Bill Mauk of Boise, blamed Paradis’ long imprisonment on a deputy prosecutor who withheld key information: “It is a sad day for justice that Don Paradis spent most of his adult life in prison, most of it unfairly, most of it on Death Row.”

Paradis credited David Bond, the late Coeur d’Alene Press reporter, for helping save his life. Bond wrote dozens of articles challenging Paradis’s guilt. After Paradis’s release, Bond said, “I’m just going to sit back and relax and say, ‘I told you so.’”

On June 22, 1980, Paradis, Thomas Gibson and a third man who evaded capture dumped two bodies down an embankment, south of Post Falls. Currier, 26, a California motorcycle gangster, was tortured and killed the day before by rival bikers at Paradis’ Spokane Valley home. His girlfriend, Palmer, 19, of Spokane, may or may not have been slain there, too.

Later, Gibson claimed that he strangled Palmer in Spokane and that Paradis wasn’t home.

In Washington, Paradis and Gibson were charged with the first-degree murder of Currier. In Idaho, they were charged with the first-degree murder of Palmer. They beat the Washington murder rap when the jury ruled there was “too much reasonable doubt” to convict. But in separate trials in Idaho they were tried, convicted and condemned for Palmer’s murder.

In Kootenai County, the prosecutor argued that Palmer was alive when the bikers took her to Post Falls to dump Currier’s body. She was killed, he said, trying to escape. Her body was found face down in a creek. Courier’s body was stuffed in a sleeping bag, tied at the top.

Kootenai County never admitted wrongdoing in Paradis’s case. But in 2006 county commissioners reached a $900,000 settlement with the former Death Row inmate.

After his release, Paradis behaved for 16 years. In 2017, however, he pulled a gun during a heated argument with a housemate who kicked his dog. In 2018, he returned to prison.

That’s the Ticket

You may know that Dixie Reid was the first woman elected to the Coeur d’Alene City Council when she won a 1975 race to fill an unexpired term. And that Sandi Bloem was the first woman elected mayor here when she won the first of her three terms in 2001.

But did you know that an all-woman ticket ran for mayor and council in 1951? According to The Press, the election marked the first time a woman had run for mayor or council.

None of the five women from the Private Enterprise Party won a seat. But each was competitive in the municipal elections of April 25, 1951.

Mayor candidate Irene B. Green lost to L.L. Gardner of the Community Welfare Party, 1,562 votes to 1,139. Her four running mates lost by margins from 229 votes to 377. Martha Hatch Hanson won the most votes on the all-woman ticket with 1,231.

Street improvements and garbage disposal were the top issues for the Private Enterprise Party — not gender.

Two weeks earlier, 75 residents met to form the all-woman ticket, with women outnumbering the men at the gathering four to one.

Unexpectedly, according to The Press, movement organizer Irene Green was nominated for mayor by an unidentified man.

One and Done

In college basketball today, “one and done” describes a star who plays a year for a team and then bolts to the NBA — Chet Holmgren from Gonzaga (2021-22), for example.

In the mid-1980s, football coach Jim Clements was one and done at Coeur d’Alene High. Faced with an unpredictable, school-levy outcome, the first-year coach opted for a job in Pullman after leading the Viks to the 1985 state A-1 championship.

Oldtimers recall that Cinderella season.

The Viks began the year by losing five of six games, then won six straight including a 21-14 victory over Meridian in the championship game.

The outlook was promising in 1986, too. Eight of 11 defensive starters were returning. But Clements and six coaches faced unemployment if the May 6 levy failed.

The Pullman job offer couldn’t wait. So, Clements bolted.

“No one wanted to stay more than I did,” he told The Press.

Ultimately, the $2.69 million levy won in a landslide.

Larry Schwenke replaced Clements as coach for the 1986 season. And Schwenke then led the Viks to eight wins and a tie before losing to Meridian 3-0 in an A-1 title rematch.

Clements, meanwhile, coached six years at Pullman and eight years at East Valley, leading his high school teams to nine Washington state playoff appearances. He retired after the 1999 season. And he died of a heart attack at age 62 on Labor Day 2002.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Weighed down by news of murder / and wars that maim and kill, / she glanced out of her window / and saw the daffodil — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Hope, in the Back Yard”).

• Watery Grave: On April 1, 1991, partners Duane Hagadone and Jerry Jaeger led a Hagadone Co. foursome that launched The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course. Some 100 golfers played 18 holes during the grand opening. According to The Press, Hagadone and John Barlow hit the floating green at the 14th hole while Jaeger and golf director Mike DeLong tested Lake Coeur d’Alene’s “splashability.”

• Tireless Crusader: In the 1990s, Kootenai County was home to Idaho’s property tax rebellion — thanks to Ron Rankin and his ragtag Property Owners Association. In 1992, 1994 and 1996, Rankin & Co. gathered signatures to place their tax-limiting One Percent Initiative on the ballot twice — only to be crushed at the polls. When asked why he didn’t quit trying, affable Rankin said: “We’re poor losers.”

• A Burro, Too: A burro was supposed to be part of Mark Richeson’s animal promo for the opening of his Markshire Club. Remember? The owner brought in seven buffalo to attract customers. But a burro, named Harry Truman, didn’t cooperate. He hee-hawed too much. The noise kept Richeson and neighbors awake. So, Harry was sacked. And the docile buffalo starred during the Markshire opening April 4, 1956.

• Did You Know? Coeur d’Alene is home to the state-of-the-art Woody McEvers Skate Park, named after our former “Cool Dude” mayor. It’s located north of Memorial Field. In spring 1991, however, Mayor Ray Stone designated a skater park site at the base of Tubbs Hill, next to the Third Street boat docks. But wiser heads prevailed. A mix of free-wheeling skaters, tourists, boaters and hikers spelled trouble.

Parting Shot

Two things happened out West after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.

Greg and Debbie Shour of Coeur d’Alene collected signatures on a get-well card to send to the president.

And I stopped the presses.

The shooting took place at 2:27 p.m. on a Monday in Washington, D.C. (12:27 p.m. Mountain Time). The presses had run for half an hour at the Daily Inter Lake in Montana when wire service alerts began pouring into the newsroom.

At age 31, I managed Duane Hagadone’s Kalispell newspaper at the time. Stopping the presses meant lost revenue and delayed newspaper delivery. It wasn’t done lightly.

But I calmed myself, approached the surly pressroom foreman and told him to shut things down. No shouting. No flailing.

Before he could argue, I told him why. He complied.

We re-plated the front page — and reported the breaking news. And I said a prayer for President Reagan, our Great Communicator.

• • •

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at [email protected].

    Former Death Row inmate Don Paradis receives a warm welcome in 2001 from a Yellow Labrador Retriever named Buddy.
  

    Don Paradis’s mug shot. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated battery and use of a firearm in the commission of a crime.
  

    Private Enterprise Party candidates are identified by The Press in 1951 as, from left, Mrs. W.B. McCartney, Mrs. Wayne Thorton, Irene Green, Martha Hatch Hanson and Mrs. George Braden.
  

    Assistant coach Steve Caires, left, congratulates coach Jim Clements after a Coeur d’Alene High victory in the 1985 state playoffs.
  

    Kootenai County Property Owners Association board members load boxes of signatures to qualify the One Percent Initiative for the 1996 state ballot. They are, from left, Dee Lawless, Lee Knowles and Alice and Ron Rankin.
  

    In 2021, Bill Greenwood, Coeur d’Alene parks and recreation director, left, re-dedicates the city’s skate park in honor of Woody McEvers, right.
  

    Owner Mark Richeson loads Harry Truman, his stubborn mule, into a truck before the 1956 opening of his Markshire Club in Coeur d’Alene.
  

    Debbie Shour of Coeur d’Alene, left, helps Trish Hildebrand sign a get-well card for wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981.