There've been victims of heat - but also victims of heart disease, drug overdoses, emphysema, alcoholism and, in one case, murder.įor all the focus on the hundreds at the Camp Hope encampment or the dozens sleeping on sidewalks in downtown Spokane, life-and-death struggles also unfold behind closed doors in places like the New Washington and Wolfe apartments, with about 70 units combined. "If we don't see certain people at least once a day, we go check on them," says Michael Davis, a tenant at the New Washington since 2017.įrom May 2016 to August 2021, public records requested and reviewed by the Inlander show that police have found 19 dead bodies in these two apartment buildings. Tenants in both low-income apartment complexes are so used to death, they've built it into their routine. Robert Hunt, Andre Pharr and Deanna Farwell all died from that heat, but each had a preexisting condition: deep poverty.Īll three died in two apartment buildings that tenants have decried as so beset by pests, disrepair and disorder as to be unlivable. For seven days, it was the worst heat wave to hit Spokane in nearly a century, with its highest-ever temperature of 109 set on June 29. The National Weather Service called it a "heat dome," and it settled over the region like a blast furnace in the sky and would not budge. But the dog's owner - the tiny 64-year-old grandmother - is dead, found sitting in a chair in the 97-degree heat.īetween June 26 and July 2, 2021, the Pacific Northwest was hit with an unprecedented heat wave. When police enter Deanna Farwell's second-floor unit at the Wolfe, Shannon, the yappy brown-and-black dachshund-Chihuahua mix that Farwell raised from a puppy, is there to greet them. Just 400 feet to the southeast, at the Wolfe Apartments - another complex owned by the same man, Jason Wolfe - another dead body is found less than 36 hours later. The police chaplain hands the officers bottles of water. Both had been recently suffering from dehydration, living in units without sinks or bathrooms. Looking for witnesses, Spokane Police Officer Josh Stewart knocks on one of the hall's other doors, causing the unlatched door to swing open, revealing a second victim: Andre Pharr is lying on his side on a bare mattress, a box fan blowing full speed at his face. Even that early, the apartment is a furnace - with the stagnant air in the hallways soaring to 100 degrees. It's about 10 in the morning on June 30, 2021, when the cops finally arrive at the New Washington apartment building on West Second Avenue, across from the Big Dipper. T he heat killed Robert Hunt last summer. Over the next 100 years, these sorts of units becameĪ crucial part of Spokane's unofficial safety net. Accordingly, you should confirm the accuracy and completeness of all posted information before making any decision related to any data presented on this site.The New Washington was originally built in 1910, when Spokane's population tripled in a decade. Owners of assume no responsibility (and expressly disclaim responsibility) for updating this site to keep information current or to ensure the accuracy or completeness of any posted information. Some addresses or other data might no longer be current. Some persons listed might no longer be registered sex offenders and others might have been added. All names presented here were gathered at a past date. No representation is made that the persons listed here are currently on the state's sex offenders registry. Marks/Scars/Tattoos: scar on r_forearm (1") tattoo on chest (tribal eagle)
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