BOUNTY-HUNTER MOTIVE ALLEGED

Prosecutor asserts theft was at heart of fatal Phoenix attack

PHOENIX -- Masked men who burst into a home last year claiming to be bounty
hunters before shooting two people to death actually hoped to steal drugs
and cash, a prosecutor told potential jurors Wednesday.

Michael Sanders and four accomplices planned to use bounty hunting as a
cover story to rob a home they thought was occupied by drug dealers,
Maricopa County Deputy Attorney William Clayton said in explaining the case
to a panel of potential jurors.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers Wednesday began whittling away a pool of
100 potential jurors to reach the 15 jurors and alternates needed for
Sanders' trial. He is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault,
false imprisonment and burglary in the 1997 incident that led to the
shooting deaths of Chris Foote, 25, and Spring Wright, 19.

The killings drew national attention to the bounty-hunter business and
prompted a new state law requiring bounty hunters to be licensed and to get
permission before entering occupied homes.

Sanders, 41, could face the death penalty if he is convicted of
first-degree murder.

Defense attorney Carmen Fischer said Sanders was indeed on a legitimate
search for a California bail jumper, Victor Alcantar, when he and three
other men broke into Foote's home. She said the men had notified Phoenix
police about the raid the week before it happened.

Fischer said Ronald Timms, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and
is scheduled to testify for the prosecution, may have planned on his own to
rob the Foote house.

Documents provided by the bail company that wrote Alcantar's bond show the
bond had expired years before the raid on the Foote home, however. Fischer
did not address that point but said bond companies sometimes can collect on
an expired bond if they collar the fugitive.

Another man charged in connection with the killings, alleged getaway driver
Brian Robbins, pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges Tuesday. The plea
deal also requires Robbins, who is Sanders' brother-in-law, to testify
against Sanders.

Clayton and Fischer both said Sanders and fellow bounty hunter David
Brackney broke down the door to the bedroom where Foote and Wright were
sleeping in the early morning of Aug. 31, 1997. Foote fired at the men
several times with a 9mm handgun, and Sanders and Brackney fired back.

Sanders, who fired 18 shots from an AR-15 assault rifle, was shot three
times in the arms, Fischer said. Foote was hit with several bullets,
including one in the top of the head, and Wright also was shot in the
forehead, Clayton said.

1997 - 1998 Mercury Center.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan