Indie King Jr., 40, is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly scheming with a house guest to kill his 20-year-old, ethnic-Russian bride, Anastasia, in late 2000. Daniel Kristopher Larson, the house guest, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the slaying.
In opening statements, prosecutors said King was so upset with the divorce settlement at the end of his first marriage -- also to a mail-order bride -- that he killed his second wife to ensure it wouldn't happen again.
"He was bitter and obsessed with his first divorce and [thought] he lost money to her unjustly," said Coleen St. Clair of the prosecutor's office.
Defense attorney David Allen said Larson, 21, acted alone in killing Anastasia King. He said Larson killed her because he believed she wanted him out of the house, thought she had been unfaithful to her husband, and because he disliked immigrants.
Allen also said Larson had been offered a "sweetheart deal" for his testimony against Indle King.
Larson, who has offered various versions of the crime, has said he strangled Anastasia King with a necktie while she was pinned beneath her husband.
Anastasia disappeared after the couple visited her parents in Kyrgyzstan in September 2000. King initially told authorities he thought she had stayed in that country. But U.S. Customs Service records showed both arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sept. 22, 2000.
Anastasia King's body was found on the Tulalip Indian Reservation near Marysville about three months later by authorities acting on a tip.
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