A woman serving a nearly 72-year prison sentence for her role in a 2010 homicide in Edgewood that began with a Craigslist ad for a diamond ring saw her punishment cut to 32-and-a-half years Friday after her murder conviction was overturned.
Amanda Christine Knight was one of four people who went to the home of 43-year-old Jim Sanders under the guise of purchasing the ring. While Knight and an accomplice were discussing it, the accomplice drew a handgun, according to prosecutors, and Sanders and his wife were restrained in zip ties.
Sanders’ two sons were in the home, ages 10 and 14, and they were brought into the kitchen at gunpoint. The family was beaten, and while Knight ransacked bedrooms, Sanders was shot to death in front of his wife and children by Kiyoshi Higashi when the father tried to protect his older son from being pistol-whipped.
In November 2023, a divided opinion from the Washington State Supreme Court overturned Knight’s conviction by a jury for first-degree murder. The lead opinion was that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support Knight’s conviction in the particular way it was presented to the jury.
In Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday, elected Prosecutor Mary Robnett sought to convince Judge Thomas P. Quinlan to impose high-end punishments on Knight’s remaining convictions, two counts first-degree robbery, two counts second-degree assault and first-degree burglary, including five firearm sentencing enhancements.
Robnett argued for a 33-year sentence, calling the crime a dreadful and violent attack. She prosecuted Knight and her three codefendants, Higashi, Clabon Berniard and Joshua Reese, in four separate trials following their arrests.
Knight’s defense attorney, Paula Olson, requested a 21-year sentence, arguing that Knight’s youthfulness when the crime occurred — she was 21 — reduces her culpability, and that based on her abusive childhood, she may have been reacting in fear of her older, male codefendants.
Sanders’ widow, Charlene, and his younger brother, Derek, testified in court Friday about how this crime had affected their family. Derek Sanders asked that the judge impose the maximum sentence allowed.
Charlene Sanders said she believed her husband would still be alive if not for Knight, who she said set the whole crime up when she convinced him that she wanted to buy the ring for her mother for Mother’s Day.
It was Knight who talked to her husband about the ring, and Charlene Sanders said she was convinced her female voice softened his heart to the point that he let his guard down. Sanders said Knight was responsible for his “pointless” death.
“We have spent almost 15 years trying to go on with life in the midst of all this PTSD, and from what I have witnessed I will say this. The evil act has altered my son, Chandler’s life, and his future, so I cannot even imagine how detrimental it still must be for Jimmy Jr., losing his dad right before his eyes.”