Former Bellingham man pleads not guilty to killing wife in 1990

PETER JENSEN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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BELLINGHAM - A former resident accused of killing his wife almost 18 years ago pleaded not guilty in Whatcom County Superior Court Friday, Oct. 3.

Bruce A. Hummel was charged with first-degree murder in July for allegedly killing his wife, Alice, who was last seen in their Alabama Hill home in October 1990.

Hummel's trial is set to begin Nov. 24, but that likely will be delayed, said Hummel's attorney, Whatcom County Public Defender Jon Komorowski. Komorowski said his office will need more time, possibly more than three months, to review evidence.

Hummel will remain in Whatcom County Jail. He was extradited from a federal prison in Minnesota, and is almost halfway through serving a 27-month sentence for illegally cashing Alice Hummel's disability checks.

Alice Hummel's body has never been found, but Prosecutor Dave McEachran said he thinks he has enough evidence for a murder conviction.

According to charging documents filed in Superior Court, Alice Hummel's daughter had told her that Bruce Hummel had molested her. That was about two weeks before Alice Hummel disappeared.

After investigators confronted Hummel about his wife's disappearance, he wrote a letter stating that she had slit her wrists and he had dumped her body by himself in Bellingham Bay on a windy night.

But tests for blood in the Hummel home didn't back that up, and detectives say Bruce Hummel could not have handled his wife's body by himself, as he described in the letter. Weather records also show that the night he described wasn't windy.

Detectives said it was unlikely that a body dumped in the bay wouldn't have turned up, even if weighted down.