WALLA WALLA — A North Olympic Peninsula murderer who later went off death row through a federal court ruling and Port Angeles retrial, has died in prison.
Patrick James Jeffries, 71, who spent 14 years on death row for killing an east Port Angeles couple in 1983, died at Washington State Penitentiary on Saturday night, officials said Monday.
He died in the penitentiary’s infirmary of what prison spokeswoman Lori Scamahorn said were natural causes.
She said she could not provide a specific cause of death because of federal privacy rules governing personal health information.
A call to the Walla Walla County coroner’s office was not immediately returned Monday.
Jeffries was convicted in Clallam County and sentenced to death in 1983 for the aggravated first-degree murders of Phillip and Inez Skiff.
Jeffries was a parolee from Aggassiz Prison in British Columbia who had become acquainted with the Skiffs while he was in prison.
Phillip Skiff collaborated on an article for a woodworking magazine about Jeffries.
After serving two years of a 12-year sentence for armed robbery — one of a string of crimes for which he was convicted in Canada — Jeffries was paroled.
The Skiffs, both in their late 50s, invited him to stay at their rural home on Barr Road near McDonald Creek, between Sequim and Port Angeles.
The Skiffs’ bodies were found in shallow graves on their property, each with several gunshot wounds.
Investigators found that $30,000 in Canadian currency was withdrawn from their account before their deaths. The money was never recovered.
