Devlin gets 50 years in kidnapping

By ALEX STRICKLAND

Bigfork Eagle

District Judge Kim Christopher sentenced convicted kidnapper Charles Devlin, 58, to 50 years in the Montana State Prison Thursday in the May 2006 abduction of an intoxicated woman in Bigfork.

He will not be eligible for parole until he is 83.

"The judge did this to protect the public," said district court paralegal Marty Corse last week. "This will basically provide him with a lifetime of supervision."

In April a District Court jury found Devlin guilty of kidnapping then-18-year-old Carman Barnet of Whitefish at the Bigfork Whitewater Festival on May 26, 2006.

According to testimony the next day Lake County Sheriff's Deputy Glenn Miller responded to a call made by Rhonda Banik who reported screams coming from a vehicle parked near her vacation home in Woods Bay.

"I heard the most blood curdling cry for help," Banik told the jury in April. "It was nothing you'd ever forget."

Miller responded to the call and headed north on Highway 35. En route, a fellow deputy who happened to be on the same highway, radioed Miller to watch for a van that was driving suspiciously slow. Miller found a Ford Windstar sideways in the middle of the roadway attempting to back up into the entrance of Yellow Bay State Park, located about 16 miles south of Woods Bay. It was a dangerous maneuver, he said before the jury, so he initiated a traffic stop.

Upon approaching the vehicle, the driver stepped out of the van. Miller instructed him to remain seated. He noted that the driver smelled of alcohol, his speech was slurred and his zipper of his pants was down. He also had several scratches on him. Asked if he had been drinking, the driver said he had a glass of wine but that the smell was coming from his wife who was passed out in the back.

Miller observed a pile of clothes in the cargo area of the van where the seats were removed. He didn't see anyone unconscious, though there was a lump under the pile. Suddenly a frantic, screaming, naked woman jumped out from under the heap of clothes. She pleaded with Miller not to leave her and stated that she didn't know who the driver was.

The woman, identified as 18-year-old Barnet, exited the van and ran off into a wooded area wearing only a bra.

The driver was identified as Devlin. When asked to perform a series of field sobriety tests, he began displaying symptoms of a heart attack. An ambulance took him to St. Joseph Medical Center in Polson where a doctor could not identify any heart ailments. That same day, after Devlin was placed in the Lake County Detention Center, he expressed more chest pains and was Lifeflighted to St. Patrick's in Missoula. No heart problems were found there either.

On April 11, in emotional testimony, Barnet erupted in tears when defense attorney Ben Anciaux questioned her recollection of events.

As Barnet recalls, she and a friend went to Bigfork to attend the Whitewater Festival on May 26, 2006, a yearly event that brings kayakers to the Swan River to race the "wild mile" at the height of spring runoff. There, Barnet and friend Shana Funk met with some friends, set up camp for the night and indulged in a bottle of rum before hitting the bars downtown.

Barnet admits to being heavily intoxicated that night and passing out between 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. The next thing she remembers is waking up nearly naked in a strange man's van heading down the highway.

Devlin's defense was that the girl drank herself into unconsciousness, collapsed in a patch of grass and got soaked in the rain. Her friends then — according to Devlin's story — found shelter for her in his van, took off her wet clothes and put a blanket over her.

Anciaux further questioned her recollection of events, prompting a heated back-and-forth between the two. At one point she lashed out at the defense attorney after he scrutinized her story for details. She broke down sobbing. Judge Kim Christopher offered her tissue and asked if she needed five minutes to compose herself. She said she didn't, and Anciaux continued his cross-examination, and asked how she knew for certain if friends didn't place her in the van, since she was so drunk at the time.

In an outburst of anger, Barnet berated the defendant saying that, even if her friends did place her in the van, he should have notified authorities that there was unconscious 18-year-old in his vehicle.

"You call 911!" she shouted and pointed at Devlin sitting at the defense table. "You don't take someone's clothes off and drive down the road drunk!"

Deputy county attorney Mark Russell argued that Devlin is not the good Samaritan he claimed to be. In the recorded interview with Yonkin, Devlin seemed affable and talked at length about his favorite fishing hole. He depicted himself as a harmless old man and provided folksy, homespun musings.

"I have 'John Wayne syndrome,'" he told Lake County Detective Dan Yonkin. "You never hurt a woman, kid or dog."

He laughed about the kidnapping charge and referred to the fact that his van doors were unlocked.

"Now what kind of self-respecting kidnapper would keep the doors unlocked?" he asked.

If Devlin was really trying to help Barnet, why didn't he tell Miller about the unconscious girl in the back of his van?

"Instead, he calls her his 'wife,'" said Russell. "What part of any of that shows a good Samaritan?"

Corse said it was argued that Devlin had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and should receive a lighter sentence and seek treatment.

"The judge said that PTSD is not an excuse for bad behavior," she said. "There are plenty of people out there with PTSD who don't commit crimes."

Devlin was also sentenced to 20 years in the Montana State Prison with 15 years suspended for jumping bail in 2006. Those years will be served concurrently with the kidnapping sentence.