Kellogg police close nearly 40-year-old homicide case

By CHANSE WATSON

Managing Editor

KELLOGG — Kellogg Police Chief Dave Wuolle believes that his agency, along with the help of Idaho State Police, have put to bed a nearly 40-year-old unsolved murder case. Unfortunately, the suspected murderer is no longer alive.

On Aug. 7, 1980, former Panhandle Dry Cleaners owner Donald Folkman was shot with a 22. caliber pistol in the upstairs room of his business. KPD discovered Donald after his then-wife, Fizzy Folkman, ran to the Kellogg Police Station and frantically reported the incident.

The North Idaho Press reported on Aug. 7 that “details of the shooting were sketchy and police said there were no witnesses.”

Early investigation of the case seemed to lean toward a robbery gone wrong, as the North Idaho Press also mentioned in its short front-page article that “Folkman’s apartment was robbed just a few days ago while he (Donald) was downstairs at his business.”

A follow-up article in late August of that same year, titled “Homicide probe nets few clues,” described a situation with little to no leads or evidence being found.

“Although in receipt of some preliminary lab reports from the FBI, Shoshone County law enforcement officials are no closer to solving the apparent homicide of Kellogg laundry owner Don Folkman,” it read.

Since FBI lab reports came back negative, former Shoshone County prosecuting attorney John Cossel told the Press that he “did not expect charges to be issued in the apparent homicide within the next few days.”

Fast-forward 38 years later and still no charges were ever filed. The unsolved murder of Donald Folkman was closed — at least until recently.

With the help of some new testimony collected by KPD and ISP, Wuolle strongly believes that the murderer was the very same person who alerted the police on the day of the killing.

KPD reopened the investigation between two and three years ago, after a woman in Spokane inquired about Donald’s murder. The woman was investigating her long-lost brother’s disappearance, who went missing in the 1950s, and was attempting to learn more about the girl he was dating at the time — Fizzy Folkman.

Though KPD could not help the woman in Spokane, the call did give them cause to take another look at Donald’s case.

Wuolle says that the actual case file was badly disorganized and was missing several pieces of information, but he did discover that Fizzy was actually found guilty of the murder before — just not in a criminal case.

“The case file is scattered,” he said. “We tried to piece it back together and found out there was a civil trial in Kootenai County. The children of Don Folkman filed against the wife at the time. State Patrol looked into that and it was determined in civil trial that she killed him. So she lost that trial to Don’s children.”

Wuolle suspects much of the missing information and evidence in the case file was sent to the FBI and Kootenai County years ago and was never sent back.

It is unknown what happened to the criminal case against Fizzy after the civil case’s conclusion.

“From there, (I) don’t know what happened to the case,” Wuolle said. “It doesn’t sound like it was ever actually filed with the Shoshone County prosecutor… Civil court in Kootenai County found that she pretty much did it and awarded everything to the kids.”

Wuolle kept the case open since the first call, but it wasn’t until another woman from Spokane called in recently that KPD and ISP decided to take action.

“We got a call from another gal in Spokane that said she had information,” Wuolle said. “She was supposedly told that Fizzy shot him and went to the police department to report it.”

Without revealing the identity of this woman, Wuolle told the News-Press that she was an acquaintance of Fizzy’s family.

Armed with this new information, KPD and ISP prepared to go interview Fizzy, who moved to Spokane after the 1980 shooting. Right before they set out to conduct the interview, they were informed that Fizzy had passed away within the last two years.

Even without the interview though, Wuolle is confident that she was the one who killed Donald all those years ago.

Fizzy’s motivation for the murder is not clear, but Donald did have a life insurance policy at the time of his death and “there was speculation of a possible affair too,” Wuoole said. “There was an indication that they were split up due to an affair.”