Apr. 8—A 38-year-old man who killed a Colville Tribe elder in an unprovoked attack on the Colville Indian Reservation was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice sentenced Steven J. Zacherle for the second-degree murder of Dion Boyd and threats in interstate commerce, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office — Eastern District of Washington news release. Rice also imposed five years of supervised release and restitution payable to the Colville Confederated Tribes for Boyd’s funeral expenses.
The release said Zacherle was arguing with his partner on the evening of Oct. 18, 2022, near a gas station, according to court documents and testimony at the sentencing hearing.
His partner drove away from the area without Zacherle, who had gone inside a nearby store. Zacherle called and texted her, demanding she return or he was going to kill and injure people, the release said.
Boyd, an elder with the tribe, walked out of the gas station around the same time Zacherle made the threats to his partner. Zacherle and Boyd walked the same direction for a short distance before Zacherle struck Boyd in the head.
Zacherle then called his partner, bragging that he knocked someone out. He asked her whether she wanted to see what Zacherle had done, and she said she could hear garbled breathing and snorting on the phone line.
Omak police officers and first responders found Boyd, who was unresponsive and face down, bleeding from his head. Doctors determined Boyd was braindead and would never recover.
Boyd died about three weeks later, according to the release. A medical examiner determined Boyd sustained a severe brain hematoma and cracked skull.
Bree Black Horse, Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons assistant U.S. attorney, said at sentencing that Boyd’s loved ones described him as a generous man who helped raise his younger siblings and later his own children. He also served as an information technology technician, ensuring rural Colville tribal members could have cell service.
“Mr. Boyd’s violent and senseless death at the hands of Zacherle has severely impacted the large family Mr. Boyd has left behind,” Black Horse said. “And, Mr. Boyd is now among the disproportionate number of murdered Indigenous people and Mr. Boyd’s family has joined the ranks of too many other MMIP families throughout Eastern Washington and elsewhere.”
The FBI and Colville Tribal Police Department investigated the murder.
“This appalling attack was truly senseless,” W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office, said in the release. “Mr. Zacherle displayed a shocking disregard for the value of human life when he took his frustrations out on an innocent bystander, recklessly costing that person his life. The Colville Indian Reservation is a safer place with him off the streets.”