PORT ANGELES — The hearing for a murder suspect to enter a plea in the beating death of his girlfriend has been continued until this Friday.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly and defense attorney Terry Mulligan said earlier this month they were finalizing an agreement for a guilty plea from Nathan Eugene Hipsher.
But on Friday, Mulligan told a Clallam County Superior Court judge that an issue “beyond control of the parties” meant the hearing would need to be continued.
Hipsher will return to Superior Court at 1:30 p.m. this Friday in anticipation of entering a plea and being sentenced to avoid trial.
A message sent to the court by Mulligan earlier last week indicates the deal may not happen, though he went ahead and asked to put it on this Friday’s calendar.
Neither side has released details of the proposed agreement that would bring to a close the pending charge of second-degree murder against Hipsher, 25.
Drove to Port Angeles
He is accused of fatally beating his girlfriend, Amber Rae Bulus-Steed, 26, in December inside a Sequim motel room, then driving the injured woman back to his mother’s Port Angeles home with Bulus-Steed’s two young girls inside the car.
Hipsher has remained in the Clallam County jail in lieu of $1 million bail since turning himself in to authorities the morning following Bulus-Steed’s death.
