Man sentenced to life in prison for man's stabbing death
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — A 39-year-old central Washington man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing the man he said killed his child’s mother.
Donovan Culps, a Yakama Nation citizen, pleaded guilty in February to second-degree murder in the death of Neil Cloud, whom prosecutors described as the suspect in the death of Felina Metsker in 2016.
Culps was already in custody on charges he kidnapped and killed a Cheney marijuana shop employee when he told a Spokane reporter that he had killed a man on the Yakama Nation reservation because that man had killed his child’s mother, the Yakima Herald-Republic reported.
Prosecutors said Metsker was killed at her home in March 2016, and Culps learned that Neil and George Cloud had killed her. In June 2017, Neil Cloud was brought to Culps’ home, where Culps beat him, restrained him with zip ties and killed him, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Neil Cloud’s remains were found on Towtnuk Road in Medicine Valley Sept. 18, 2017, the same month the Cheney marijuana shop employee was killed, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Culps was sentenced to 35 years in state prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the Cheney homicide, which prosecutors said was unrelated to Cloud’s death.
George Cloud was sentenced to life in federal prison in May 2019 for killing Metsker.