Second trial under way in campground shooting death

LIBBY - Jury selection has begun in the case of an 18-year-old Kalispell man charged with deliberate homicide in the shooting death of a man at a Libby-area campground.

Stephen M. Thomas is charged in the July 12, 2008, death of 67-year-old Larry Kingsley at the remote Sylvan Lake Campground in the Kootenai National Forest.

Prosecutors say Thomas and his girlfriend, 19-year-old Heather Henson of Kalispell, shot Kingsley more than a dozen times with rifles and a .22-caliber pistol.

In December, Henson was convicted of mitigated attempted deliberate homicide. Later she was sentenced to five years in prison.

Henson was acquitted on charges of deliberate homicide, tampering with physical evidence and felony theft.

Henson told investigators that Kingsley was shot after he held a knife to Thomas' throat.

At Henson's trial, Thomas testified that four days of drinking, drugs, sex and shopping sprees culminated in the shooting of Kingsley.

Jury selection began Monday and the trial is expected to last into next week.