On a cold December evening, the holiday season took a tragic turn for a family visiting from California. Fifty-one-year-old Mark Leland, a White male, was spending time with his wife and her family at a home on Westover Road, just south of Colville, Washington, on December 28, 2018. An apparent domestic dispute escalated with unimaginable swiftness, ending in gunfire.
Inside the garage of the residence, Mark Leland was shot twice in the abdomen with a.
357 revolver by his 72-year-old father-in-law, James C. Gates of Spokane. While bleeding on the floor, Leland gave a statement to responding sheriff's deputies that conflicted with Gates' claim of self-defense. An ambulance rushed Leland to Providence Mount Carmel Hospital in Colville, but he succumbed to his injuries later that night. His wife and another resident of the home told authorities they were inside and did not witness the shooting. Deputies at the scene described the demeanor of Gates and the other family members as stoic and emotionless.
James C. Gates was arrested and held in the Stevens County Jail. Initially scheduled to stand trial for second-degree murder, he later accepted a plea deal. On October 21, 2019, Gates pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. A judge sentenced him to more than seven years in prison, an 88-month term that the county prosecutor noted could amount to a life sentence given Gates' advanced age. Upon his eventual release, he would be subject to three years of probation.
