In April 1995, East Wenatchee, Washington, lost 48-year-old Rita Huffman and her 15-year-old daughter Amanda in a brutal double slaying. Rita’s body was found on the family room sofa and Amanda on a bed; both victims had been sexually mutilated and posed. Another daughter discovered the scene after she could not reach them.

Investigation centered on 27-year-old Jack Owen Spillman III of Spokane. A neighbor reported seeing Spillman’s black pickup in a parking lot near the Huffman home around the time of the killings, and an East Wenatchee officer had stopped at that truck in the VFW hall parking lot on the night of the murders. A 12-inch knife believed to match a set from the Huffmans’ home was recovered in a garbage can at the same VFW hall. Hair and fibers from the scene were also cited in the case.

Spillman was arrested and, facing potential capital charges, pleaded guilty in 1996 to the first-degree murders of Rita and Mandy Huffman; he also confessed to the 1994 murder of 9-year-old Penny Davis in Tonasket and became widely known by the nickname The Werewolf Butcher. Anyone with memories of Rita or Amanda, or who knew the family, is asked to come forward with information.