Dante changes plea; will not face jury trial

BONNERS FERRY — Eric Dante will not face a jury trial as expected.

In court on Oct. 18, First District Judge Barbara Buchanan accepted a Rule 11 plea agreement that will result in Dante spending 10 years of fixed time in prison and 10 years of indeterminate time.

This means he will spend anywhere from 10-20 years in prison for the shooting death of 38-year-old Jessika Musson that took place on May 1, 2017.

Dante, represented by Attorney Sean P. Walsh, withdrew his not guilty plea and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

This follows the March 8 hearing in which Buchanan was not willing to bind herself to the original plea agreement, which would have resulted in at least five years in prison.

“I definitely have mixed feelings about a trial versus these plea,” said Shauna Carr, Musson’s sister. “All of this has been a struggle on our emotions and we want, obviously, the biggest sentence we can. For us, of course we feel like a life for a life is fair, but just going through this process, we realized that is not realistic.”

The Musson family hopes that Dante will serve the eight and half years he has left on his sentence, as well as at least a portion of the indeterminate sentence.

“To not have to go through a trial and that emotion, kind of feels like a blessing in some ways,” said Carr. “I don’t know that we are going to get anything more fair than this by putting our families and communities through a week trial. It feels like we just have to accept it. We have to accept it and move on. It is out of our hands and it is in God’s hands. He has to live with what he did at the end of the day.”

Although Dante and his attorney indicated that they were ready for the sentencing immediately, the sentencing was set for Dec. 6, to allow for Musson’s family to be in attendance.