PORT ANGELES — Attorneys are negotiating a plea agreement for the man charged with murder in his girlfriend’s death last December.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams on Friday scheduled a hearing in two weeks for Nathan Eugene Hipsher, 25, to enter a plea and face sentencing for the beating death of Amber Rae Bulus-Steed.
Some of Bulus-Steed’s family members who sat in the courtroom during Hipsher’s short afternoon hearing cried upon hearing that a disposition could be reached soon in the case.
Bulus-Steed’s mother had asked in December that Hipsher not put the family through the pain of a trial and make the case drag on.
“That’s what we were hoping it wouldn’t do, because it tears my wife up,” Bulus-Steed’s stepfather, Jerry Steed, said outside the courtroom Friday.
Neither Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly nor Hipsher’s attorney, Terry Mulligan of Clallam-Jefferson Public Defenders, would talk about the terms of the plea agreement because it has not been finalized.
Kelly did say the wishes of Bulus-Steed’s family play “a large role” in the agreement she is seeking.
Hipsher, who is jailed in lieu of $1 million bail, is scheduled to return to court at 1:30 p.m. April 15.
