By David Grant Long

An Arizona fugitive who shot an Idaho tourist to death at the Sleeping Ute Rest Stop near Cortez will spend the rest of his days behind bars under a plea bargain made with District Attorney Mike Green that was signed earlier this month.

Christopher Dean Paul, 36, pleaded guilty to premeditated, first-degree murder under an agreement that wards off the death penalty but also precludes any chance that he will ever be released from prison. He will be formally sentenced March 9.

On Sept. 13, 1998, Paul later confessed to police, he killed 67-year-old LaVoyne Parish of Aberdeen, Idaho, in order to switch vehicles after fleeing the Phoenix area, where he was serving a misdemeanor sentence in a halfway house. Paul arrived at the Four Corners area in a stolen truck and wanted Parish’s vehicle instead, he said.

He was arrested three days later in California after shooting and wounding a highway patrol officer, and recounted the killing here during an interview with police.

Paul lured Parish, a narrow-gauge-railroad buff who was vacationing alone in the area and planned on riding the Durango/Silverton train, into a stand of cedar trees just north of the rest stop on the pretense of showing him some Indian ruins, he told Oceanside Detective Tom Morgans shortly after his arrest.

Paul "stated he was waiting (at the rest stop) for someone to kill," Morgans told Montezuma County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Harmon, according to Harmon’s affidavit supporting the charges in district court here. The predatory killer had spent three hours sizing up potential victims before choosing Parish, it added.

After shooting Parish in the head and chest with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and robbing him of his billfold, Paul took his victim’s 1991 Mazda pickup and spent the night in a Cortez motel, the affidavit recounted. The following day he returned to the rest stop, moved Parish’s body to a more hidden location and covered it with a blanket from the truck.

According to the affidavit, Paul told police he was not under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs at the time of the shooting, but was taking four medications: Zyprexa, an antipsychotic drug; Paxil, an antidepressant sometimes prescribed for social anxiety; Vasotech, a blood-pressure medication; and diphenhydramine, an over-the-counter antihistamine.

After the murder, Paul made a brief stop at the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park to throw Parish’s remaining personal possessions in a dumpster. Then the diminutive killer — 5-foot-7, 130 pounds — headed west.

His crime spree ended two days later when he was stopped for suspected drunk driving. (Although Parish had, by this time, been reported missing by his family, his fate was still unknown.)

Paul came out of the pickup firing and managed to wound the patrolman, who nonetheless was able to disarm and arrest him. He was convicted of attempted murder of a police officer last spring and sentenced to 77 years in the California prison system before being extradited to face charges here in November.

Parish’s body was located by searchers shortly after Oceanside police notified the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office of Paul’s confession, and charges were filed in court here soon thereafter.