Arizona Daily Sun from Flagstaff, Arizona • A1

1 KATIE DEVEREAUX Sun Staff Reporter The jury selection process be- gan Monday for a grand jury trial of an Ash Fork woman accused of killing her 6-year-old nephew in 2015. Lillian Hester was indicted in May 2016 on one count of first-de- gree murder and one count of child abuse in the death of her nephew, Jason Hester. The trial is slated to last for five weeks and will begin as soon as the jury of 12 plus two alternates are chosen. According to the 2015 report from the Coconino County Sher- Office, Lillian, 37, called 911 at 12:50 p.m. on June 22, 2015, to report that her nephew had stopped breathing at her Ash Fork home.

When deputies and Kaibab Estates West fire per- sonnel arrived, they found Lillian and her mother, Lenda Hester, 64, performing CPR on Jason. Jason was pronounced dead about three hours later at EMERY COWAN Sun Staff Reporter Freshly constructed roads, foundations and home structures cut through scrub brush that cov- ers a corner of land at the edge of Doney Park. The new rural subdivision, called The Hills at Slayton Ranch, is one of several projects that have been working their way through the pipeline at Coconino Coun- community development department in recent years as the economy has rebounded from the Great Recession. Together, the housing projects have claimed some of the last large, developable and county land around Flagstaff, said Jay Christelman, director of the community de- velopment department. running Christel- man said.

especially true when it comes to land adjacent to infrastructure that could be extended to newly built homes, he said. Building activity in general has ticked upward as well, with permit activity in 2018 already on track to be 30 percent higher than last year, Christelman said. As for the subdivision projects that are in progress, most are ones that have been revived af- ter coming to a standstill during the recession. With a variety of lot sizes and housing types, the subdivisions in progress or in the planning stages should offer a range of house prices, he said. That includes high-end homes on 10-acre lots near Forest Highlands, smaller lots and likely more affordable homes planned for Kachina Vil- lage and manufactured home spaces planned for Bellemont.

Building momentum in housing projects JAKE BACON, ARIZONA DAILY SUN Real estate broker Tim Shinkle stands in front of two homes being built on adjacent lots at The Hills at Slayton Ranch development in Doney Park Wednesday afternoon. The subdivision is one of several recent projects that have claimed much of the undeveloped county land around Flagstaff. Grand jury trial begins FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press PHOENIX Every March 21, Roberta Tortice says to her youngest child the same words she spoke when she first held the girl, her face flawless and beautiful. But for more than a decade, she has seen Katherine Tortice only in pictures. wearing a light-colored dress at her eighth- grade graduation, sitting in a hall- way outside her bedroom after claiming she cleaned it, getting ready to play basketball and in a red shirt while away at boarding school in Oregon.

see always the proud mother says. Those are ways she remembers the 16-year-old who was killed and buried in a shallow grave on the Fort Apache Indian Reser- vation in eastern Arizona in No- vember 2006. Roberta Tor- tice had sus- pected then-boyfriend Andre Hinton was responsible but it un- til a decade later that a federal grand jury in- dicted Hinton on a second-de- gree murder charge. Federal au- thorities have jurisdiction over major crimes on the reservation. The 36-year-old Hinton pleaded guilty earlier this year Family sees justice in death FELICIA FONSECA Roberta Tortice holds up photos of her daughter, Katherine Tortice at the federal courthouse in Phoenix on Tuesday.

body was found in a shallow grave on an American Indian reservation in Arizona more than a decade ago, and now the man responsible for leaving the teenager for dead is going to prison for eight years. Ex-professor accused of stalking takes deal THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A former Northern Arizona University professor could serve no more than 13 months in cus- tody for allegedly stalking mem- bers of hotshot fire crews. Melissa Ann Santana faces 10 felony charges of stalking and making false a against at least 11 people, includ- ing members of the Flagstaff and Globe hotshot crews, according to court records. Prosecutors and defense at- torneys have agreed to a deal in which Santana would plead guilty to one count of false statements and two counts of stalking. Seven other felony counts of similar charges would be dismissed, The Arizona Re- public reported.

If a federal judge accepts the plea agreement in September, Santana, who has been in cus- tody since Oct. 30, would be sentenced to time served, up to ALMANAC A2 AROUND TOWN A2 CLASSIFIEDS B6 COMICS B5 DEAR ABBY B5 LOTTERY A3 MOVIES A6 OPINION A5 SPORTS B1 $1.50 Volume 72, Issue 287 A Lee Enterprises Newspaper Copyright 2018 Follow us online: facebook.com/ArizonaDailySun twitter.com@azds instagram.com/azdailysun See a collection of more than 180 of Randy Outdoors features AT AZDAILYSUN.COM DISCOVER DIGITAL THUNDERSTORMS 76 56 FORECAST, A2 ThursdAy, July 12, 2018 azdailysun.com New county manager Board of Supervisors unanimously approves Jayne LOCAL, A3 Surviving a scare Continental 12s stave off rally, set up meeting with West Flagstaff SPORTS, B1 Ash Fork woman accused of killing nephew in 2015 hester Activity speeds up in county after recession rebound JAKE BACON, ARIZONA DAILY SUN Many of the lots of The Hills at Slayton Ranch back up to the Coconino National Forest. santana Eight-year sentence delivered more than 10 years later hinton Please see hEsTEr, Page A8 Please see BuIldING, Page A8 Please see JusTICE, Page A8 Please see sTAlKING, Page A8.