Theft-Arson Fire

An Oct. 15 trial was slated for Jocelyn Elise Gates, 23, a suspect in the motor home theft from Pullman which was subsequently discovered burning along Highway 26 in the LaCrosse area. She pleaded not guilty last Friday in superior court to charges of burglary, theft and arson.

She was released on her own recognizance after being arrested June 20 on a warrant at her residence in the Yakima area. Another suspect in the case, Damon McCart, was not at the residence at the time deputies served the warrant. He has subsequently been arrested in Yakima on pending charges there, and Whitman County has placed a hold request with a warrant.

Gates and McCart are suspected of taking a 34-foot Damon Intruder motor home from the fenced storage lot along the Moscow/Pullman Highway.

the arrest report filed with the charges against Gates, they decided to set fire to the motor home after it became stuck while she was driving it along a frontage road in the LaCrosse area. She told officers she accidentally discharged a gun in the motor home and McCart decided to burn the gun in the stuck home to avoid a charge of illegal possession of a gun as a convicted felon, the report said.