arrested Zitars at the home of his recently deceased mother, which he had been cleaning out and preparing to sell. Facing enhanced charges if he didn't admit guilt, Zitars would take the prosecution's plea deal on June 30. He was ordered to report to the Community Corrections Division on August 18 to begin three months of electronic home detention, but didn't show.

On August 23, King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Val Richey would move for the court to issue a bench warrant for Zitars' arrest. But the motion was futile.

On August 22, Zitars had taken his own life.

"I can't pretend to know everything that contributed to Sigurd's decision," says his lawyer, Zachary Wagnild, a former King County prosecutor himself. "However, I know that he had lost a lot ofembarrassment and alienation of my family and friends (the ones I have left) by choosing a similar option as Sigurds," he says. "He got a small legal sentence, but the stigma and assumptions of guilt from others is the heavier and lifetime sentence. It's just very sad."

Zitars "was a man that had quit his job in order to care for terminally ill family members," says Wagnild, "which is how he'll be remembered by the people who actually knew him. Sadly, that fact was lost in the political theater that motivated the TRB prosecutions."