PASCO MAN CHARGED IN FATAL FALL

KENNEWICK A Pasco man accused of plotting to kill his lover's husband by pushing him off a cliff has pleaded innocent to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

Dale M. Norwick, 41, entered his plea Friday in Benton County Superior Court.

The county sheriff's office alleged Norwick and Kathe Lee Harris, 38, of Finley, conspired last year to kill her husband, Kenneth Harris, and then collect $1.2 million in insurance money.

Harris was not harmed.

Norwick, arrested last week in Phoenix, Ariz., was being held in the county jail in lieu of $500,000 bond.

Kathe Harris has been granted immunity from prosecution for cooperating with authorities.

Kathe Harris, according to court records, told inves

tigators she and Norwick were lovers. She said she was supposed to buy Harris a camera and encourage him to take photographs from a cliff. Then, she said, Norwick was supposed to sneak up behind Harris and push him off the cliff.

Norwick and Kathe Harris planned to share the payments from Harris' life insurance policies, she said.

Law enforcement officers, tipped by an informant, foiled the plot by having one of Harris' insurers cancel a $750,000 life insurance policy.

The sheriff's office and the prosecutor's office also have reopened an investigation into the 1982 death of Norwick's brother-in-law, William Jewell.

Jewell, 32, of Kennewick, had stopped at a cliff, near Benton City, with his new camera to take some photographs and fell 115 feet to his death. The death was ruled accidental at the time.

Jewell's wife, Gerri, told investigators that Norwick received $230,000 in death benefits from her late husband's insurance, court records said.