The victim’s mother, Ellen Barnett, spoke at length in court about how her son Chad’s injuries have affected them both.
The prosecutor said the family is saddled with $191,000 in medical bills. Ellen Barnett said her son is slowly realizing that he might never walk again. It’s agonizingly difficult for him to know he can’t date, play basketball or kick a soccer ball with his niece in the backyard, she said.
Ellen Barnett added that her 29-year-old son can’t shower alone, needs to use a catheter and is plagued by “nightmares of being shot and not being able to get away.”
Phil Phillips Jr., convicted of four felonies in connection with Barnett’s shooting, spoke shortly before being sentenced by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor.
“Sorry about the loss, you know what I mean?” he said. “There’s really not much I can say, you know. I wish things wouldn’t have happened the way they went, you know, but they did. I’m sitting here, he’s sitting over there, you know, just wish things would have panned out different, you know. Once again, I’m sorry. Those words really don’t mean too much due to his circumstances, you know, but I hope that he can at least forgive me, you know. That’s pretty much it.”
Phillips, 24, of Tacoma, had earlier pleaded guilty to first-degree assault while armed with a deadly weapon, first-degree armed robbery and two counts of attempted first-degree armed robbery.
On Jan. 23, 2008, Phillips shot Barnett, then 26, in the torso at the Bank of America parking lot on Black Lake Boulevard during a botched robbery. Barnett has said he was at the bank to pick up a friend when he and others in his group were approached by two masked men. Barnett said that when the men demanded money, he and his friends refused. Phillips fired a round from a .357 Magnum revolver, and the bullet struck Barnett as he tried to drive away. Phillips and the second man fled.
It took more than two years to make an arrest. Olympia Detective Jeff Herbig said that the break in the case came in December 2009, when he found out that an inmate at the Shelton jail who bunked with Phillips had said Phillips was bragging about having committed a robbery near a mall in Olympia.
Another witness, an inmate at the federal detention center in Tacoma, later independently told Herbig that he had provided a .357 Magnum to a man later convicted as Phillips’ accomplice in the robbery. According to court papers, the witness, who was seeking consideration for leniency in an unrelated case, told Herbig that the accomplice and “Phillips arrived at his residence” in January 2008, and the accomplice “gave (him) the .357 back and told him that it had just been used in a robbery and that the victim had refused and was told that ‘the gun just went off.’”
Herbig said police later recovered the gun, and it was sent to the Washington State Patrol crime lab. A copper jacket from the bullet that struck Barnett had been recovered at the scene, and it matched the gun that Olympia police recovered, he said.
Having two independent witnesses identify Phillips was a huge break, Herbig said.
He said the three-year statute of limitations was getting nearer by the time detectives put together enough evidence to charge Phillips. Once it ran out, detectives would not have been able to charge anyone.
Herbig said the case was “hugely important for us to solve,” due to the permanent nature of Barnett’s injuries. “He is going to be affected by this for the rest of his life,” Herbig said.
Herbig, who was in the courtroom for Phillips’ sentencing, hugged Barnett’s family members outside court after the sentencing.
Olympia Detective Dan Smith has said that based on surveillance footage from the bank’s ATM the night of Barnett’s shooting, it appears that Phillips and his accomplice were trolling the area for hours, looking for people to rob.
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465
jpawloski@theolympian.com
