FERNDALE - Two Ferndale-area men pleaded guilty this week to a botched carjacking involving a shotgun and a cattle prod.
Phillip "Bullett" Krist, 30, and Stanley Eric Sanders, 39, confronted a man at gunpoint at a trailer in the 4000 block of Aldergrove Road on the evening of April 29, according to court records. Krist carried a cattle prod; Sanders had the shotgun. They demanded the keys to the man's white 1996 GMC Jimmy.
He was led outside. Krist and Sanders started arguing about who got to hold the shotgun. Quickly, while the kidnappers were distracted, the man jumped into his SUV and put it in reverse.
Krist smashed the windshield with the cattle prod. The men gave chase in a white BMW car. Sanders fired at least three shots out of the passenger window. After a brief high-speed chase, Krist crashed the BMW into a ditch along Rainbow Road.
Detectives found two large bullet or pellet holes in one of the Jimmy's tires. The suspects were tracked down three weeks later.
On Monday, Feb. 4, Krist was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery, second-degree assault with a deadly weapon, first-degree malicious mischief and unlawful possession of a firearm. A few days earlier he had pleaded guilty to instigating an October riot in Whatcom County Jail, tacking on a 15th year to his prison term.
Krist has felonies on his record for burglary, drug crimes, unlawful possession of a firearm and second-degree murder - for shooting and killing a boy with a .22-caliber rifle when he was 14.
Sanders entered his guilty plea Thursday, Feb. 7. he pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery, second-degree assault, second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, second-degree malicious mischief and unlawful imprisonment in a carjacking involving a shotgun and a cattle prod. .
He is awaiting his sentencing hearing, but the plea deal suggests a term of six years and 10 months behind bars. Sanders has a past conviction for manufacturing meth in Whatcom County.
The crimes Stanley Eric Sanders pleaded guilty to were corrected Feb. 15, 2013.
