PORT ANGELES — Nobody knew Robert Gene Covarrubias well. Some couldn’t pronounce his last name. Others didn’t know his last name until they read it in the newspaper.
The first time a group of Melissa Leigh Carter’s friends met Covarrubias, 25, they only knew him as Rob and met him days before Christmas 2004.
Although Covarrubias was no stranger to Port Angeles, Carter’s friends had never met him before.
To them, he came out of the shadows.
“He was just a guy,” Jayde Rector, 18, of Port Angeles said during testimony in Covarrubias’ first-degree murder trial.
After less than a full day of deliberation on Friday, a Clallam County Superior Court jury found Covarrubias guilty of raping and strangling Carter, a 15-year-old girl he followed from a Dec. 23, 2004, Chinook Motel party.
At the party, Covarrubias testified he had shot a quarter gram of methamphetamine and drank 11 beers.
Covarrubias pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence.
Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Kelly wants him sentenced to 40 years in prison. His sentencing hearing is set for May 25.
Shadows figured prominently in the Carter trial.
The key witness linking Covarrubias to Waterfront Trail where Carter’s body was found suffers from mental illness that, while not debilitating, leaves him hallucinating shadows.
Of their time in Covarrubias’ company, some witnesses forgot details, lost in the haze of drugs and alcohol.
