Man appears in court on murder charge, arraignment delayed

An Idaho man accused of killing his nephew, stuffing the corpse in a shower and living in an Arlee trailer with the body inside for months appeared in court on June 15 in Polson. 

Lake County District Judge James Manley granted the request of the Office of the State Public Defender and continued the arraignment of Stephen W.L. Seese, 25, for three weeks until a prosecutor from Ravalli County can travel to handle the case. 

Seese is facing one felony count of deliberate homicide. 

His wife, Kassandra Seese, 23, is being held in jail in Washington state until she is extradited for accountability to deliberate homicide. 

The badly decayed body of Richard Warner, 18, was found crumpled in a shower in a trailer on Coombs Lane near Arlee on June 2. 

Warner and the Seeses were all from Wallace, Idaho, but Warner had spent the last year of his life living in Arlee and Sanders County, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. 

Kassandra Seese told investigators that Stephen Seese beat Warner to death with a hammer on Feb. 17 for lying to him. 

The body was then stashed in the shower, but the Seeses and two young children allegedly lived with the body in the trailer until May. 

Movers showed up at the trailer on June 2 and found Warner’s body after they discovered the “distinctive, rancid smell of decaying flesh,” Prosecutor Steven Eschenbacher wrote in court documents. 

Bail for both Stephen and Kassandra Seese is $100,000. 

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.