Spokane police booked David Tibbett on a second-degree murder count in the 1986 killing of Mary Ann Turner.

What the department published is a booking for second-degree murder, built on DNA and witness statements from early in the case, with help from the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, Othram and the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. The Seattle Times described the arrest as on suspicion of that count. A booking is the jail intake. It is not a finding that he killed her, and the release does not describe a court appearance.

The Spokane Police Department said Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, that detectives with the Major Crimes Unit and the Special Investigations Unit served a search warrant at the home of 74-year-old David Tibbett, took him into custody, and booked him into the Spokane County Jail for second-degree murder in the death of Mary Ann Turner. The release says the probable cause came from DNA evidence together with witness statements made early in the investigation, and that the arrest depended on the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, Othram and the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. KHQ and KXLY reported the same booking and the same charge name. The Seattle Times and The Spokesman-Review, in accounts by the same reporter, Garrett Cabeza, used the name David J. Tibbett and described the arrest as on suspicion of second-degree murder. The department's release does not use a middle initial. A booking on that count is what the department says the jail took him in on. It is not a jury finding.

The morning of the death is where the clock moves by two minutes. The department, and KHQ following it, said officers were called at about 7:38 a.m. on Nov. 4, 1986, to an alley near South Ivory Street and East Pacific Avenue for a report of a person down in the roadway, and that they found a woman dead in the alley nearby. The Seattle Times and The Spokesman-Review put the call at about 7:40 a.m. and used the same streets. All of them said she was identified as 32-year-old Mary Ann Turner and that investigators could tell she had been murdered. The Spokesman-Review added a time the department's release does not: that he was booked around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. The department said the investigation is ongoing. It did not describe a weapon, a plea, or a next court date.

The scene details in Wednesday's newspaper stories are from a 2023 Spokesman-Review article, not from the new release. The Seattle Times and The Spokesman-Review reported that the 2023 account said there were signs of a minor struggle on the ground next to a garage, and that Turner was found with her scarf and sweater wrapped around her neck. They reported that a Spokane Daily Chronicle story at the time said she had no money or driver's license on her and that her boyfriend identified her. The 2023 account, as those papers described it Wednesday, said police believed the killer drove her to the area and left, that she was known to do sex work, and that witnesses saw her get into a 1970s Ford Torino at about 2:30 a.m. in an area then known for prostitution. Those are the papers' citations to older reporting. They are not new findings in the Wednesday release.

The Spokesman-Review also set Turner's death next to two other 1980s killings of sex workers, Debbi Finnern and Ruby Doss, and reported that DNA in the Doss case led to the conviction of a different man, Richard Aguirre, a former Pasco police officer, who was found guilty in 2023 and sentenced the next year to 25 years. The paper said no one has been arrested in the 1984 stabbing of Finnern. That paragraph is about other cases. It does not say Tibbett is charged in them. The same stories reported that Turner's sister, Brenda Lee, said Turner sometimes turned to sex work to eat, and quoted Lee: "It was like a way of survival for her." They reported Turner had been looking for her daughter, Manieka, who had run away at 16 and was later found in Seattle. The department's Wednesday release does not include that family history. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.