By Caleb Hutton
A woman has pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman in April over her purse.
Janelle Sturgeon, 41, was sentenced last month to a year in jail, with all but 15 days of the term suspended.
Here’s (most of) the story we wrote about the robbery case in June, when Sturgeon’s co-defendant, Terry Ann Humphreys, entered her guilty plea.
BELLINGHAM – A Bellingham woman was sentenced this week to a three-month jail term in the robbery of her cousin’s purse.
Terry Ann Humphreys, 40, was hanging out with her cousin and a mutual friend, Janelle Sturgeon, on April 11 in downtown Bellingham, according to charging documents. They took a truck out to the Lummi Reservation and stopped by a willow tree in the 1800 block of Marine Drive, near Marietta, to go to the bathroom.
The cousin stayed in the truck. She saw Humphreys and Sturgeon talking and “got a bad feeling, ” so she got out and started walking back toward Bellingham, prosecutors wrote.
She turned around to see Humphreys running toward her. The cousin was thrown to the ground. Humphreys punched her in the head while Sturgeon kicked at her and snatched her purse away, according to the charges.
The cousin was left with a swollen lip and bumps on her forehead. Her purse contained $220 in cash, a food stamps card and a Social Security card.
Humphreys was seen by police two days later walking along Samish Way. She matched the description of someone who had stolen beer from a downtown Shell station that day. She was intoxicated and reluctant to give her name, but eventually handed the officer a motel receipt with her name on it, according to the charges.
Dona Bracke, the prosecutor in the case, told me a while ago it was difficult to prove exactly who attacked whom. But she could prove who was in possession of a stolen EBT card (Humphreys), and who appeared to have suffered the most serious injuries (Humphreys’ cousin).
Sturgeon pleaded guilty July 19 to fourth-degree assault.
It might be worth noting: All three women involved have a pair of felonies and/or a handful of misdemeanors on their records. We wrote about Humphreys in a separate incident about two weeks ago.
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