Seese pleads guilty, testifies regarding nephew’s death
Nicole Tavenner
Stephen Seese
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POLSON – A man implicated in the beating death of his 18-year-old nephew in Arlee in February pleaded guilty and testified in district court Wednesday.
Stephen Seese, 23, changed his plea from not guilty to guilty as part of a plea agreement. Seese pleaded guilty to accountability to negligent homicide but implicated his wife, Kassandra Seese, during testimony before Judge James A. Manley on Wednesday, Dec. 7.
Last month, Kassandra Seese was sentenced to 20 years in prison with all but five suspended for her part in the crime.
County Attorney Steve Eschenbacher said the couple will be convicted for the same crime, but noted that the plea agreement for Stephen Seese calls for him to serve 40 years with none suspended due him being a persistent felony offender.
In court last week, Stephen Seese said he was taking responsibility for his part in the crime.
“I lost my nephew and best friend,” he said.
Seese said he came home one day in February and Warner and Kassandra Seese were fighting.
“I beat him up with my hands and kicked him once,” he said. “I stopped when I saw him bleeding from the nose and eye.”
Seese said he went outside and called his mom and talked to her for 20-30 minutes. He said he told her to come and get Warner. His mother, who was in Idaho, told him that she would when she returned the couple’s daughter to them.
When Seese went back inside the trailer, he found Warner lying in a different spot on the floor.
“I went to wake him up,” he said. “I noticed he wasn’t breathing. I started CPR for what felt like an hour.”
He said his wife pushed him to stop, and they decided to put him in the restroom.
“She told me to tell my mom that he ran away,” Seese recalled. “She asked me to bury him when she was at my mom’s (in Osburn, Idaho). She didn’t know I didn’t bury him.”
“I wanted her to say what happened,” he said, adding that his wife told him that she would keep their children away from him if he said what had happened.
The couple had a fight on April 15, Seese said.
“She said she hit him (Warner) with a hammer after I left the trailer because he kept saying he wanted to go home,” Seese said.
Seese, who is set to be sentenced Jan. 18, said he was pleading guilty to the crime because he failed to seek medical attention for Warner.
