Runaway juvenile found in motel room
Runaway juvenile found in motel room
A request for a welfare check last week led to the arrest of a Bigfork man who was sharing his room with a 15-year-old runaway girl from Washington.
Whitefish Police arrested James Whitmarsh, 37, on Oct. 10 and initially charged him on a Flathead County Sheriff's Office warrant for violating conditions of his probation for a felony DUI conviction. He was transported to county jail and held on a $50,000 bond.
Two days later, Whitmarsh was charged with sexual intercourse without consent. DNA samples were sent to a laboratory for analysis, and additional charges against Whitmarsh are possible.
Whitefish police and a sheriff's detective began watching Whitmarsh's motel room soon after the girl's father called from Washington asking police to check on his daughter's welfare.
The father said his daughter had not returned home when expected. He apparently knew the first name of the man his daughter was with and said he suspected they were having sexual relations at the Chalet Motel, in Whitefish.
Whitefish police officer Melissa Caputo made contact with the juvenile girl in the motel room while Whitmarsh was at work. The girl said she came to the Flathead to visit friends in Columbia Falls and admitted to having sex with Whitmarsh.
The father signed a runaway juvenile report and faxed it to Whitefish police, allowing police to remove the girl from the motel room and interview her.
Officers spotted Whit-marsh's white late-model Buick in the Super 1 Foods parking lot and arrested him without incident. He was cited for driving with a suspended license and no insurance and arrested on a Flathead County warrant for probation violations.
Whitmarsh's priors include charges of possession of dangerous drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia in Great Falls in 1987, a misdemeanor theft charge in Billings in 1988, a misdemeanor criminal contempt charge in Kalispell in 1996, and a felony DUI charge in Flathead County in October 2005. He was released from formal house arrest in the Flathead in May this year.