On April 2, Sue Newby told a friend she planned to take a horse ride with her husband and confront him about a suspected affair.
On April 4, she was dead in the bottom of Rocky Canyon north of Eagle.
What happened that day may never be known. Mark D. Newby, 46, killed himself with a gunshot to his head late Wednesday, say Ada County sheriff's deputies who discovered the body when they arrived at his home with a search warrant as they investigated Sue Newby's death.
Mark Newby called 911 April 4 to say his wife had been bucked into the canyon by her beloved Arabian, Tio. But the Valley's horse-riding community was immediately suspicious because a horse is unlikely to get so close to a cliff edge, and an experienced rider like Sue Newby would know not to ride Rocky Canyon's treacherous north rim.
Some of Sue's closest friends were suspicious because they knew that Sue had evidence Mark Newby was having an affair.
Soon, people were sharing their suspicions with the Sheriff's Office.
"I'm not a horse person," Ada County sheriff's Detective Shellie Strolberg said Thursday. "Some equestrian-type people would call in and say, 'This doesn't make sense.'"
"That was the first notch in the suspicion ladder," Strolberg said.
Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney said his deputies had gathered enough evidence over the past month to charge Newby with homicide in what initially seemed a freak riding accident in a remote locale.
"This is one that the detectives could have said, it was an accident, all of the pieces of the puzzle fit, we'll go on about our business," Raney said after a press conference Thursday. "But they didn't."
Raney declined to say Thursday whether Newby left a suicide note.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
The evidence that prompted the search warrant is circumstantial, according to Raney and an affidavit for the warrant obtained by the Idaho Statesman. Deputies say that Mark Newby had a tryst with a mistress less than 24 hours after his wife died and that his wife had a life insurance policy of $300,000 to $400,000.
The affidavit notes that during a 28-minute 911 call the day his wife died, Newby didn't sound frantic, didn't cry or ever ask responders to hurry.
Sue Newby's closest friends say they found it odd that Mark Newby didn't notify them of his wife's death, nor did he run an obituary or a death notice - though she had many friends and acquaintances from before their whirlwind romance and marriage 3 years ago. Sue's parents are both dead; her sister lives in Arizona.
Some were suspicious because Sue had confided that she suspected her husband was unfaithful.
"When I called her on Feb. 11 to wish her a belated happy birthday, she broke down crying because she thought Mark was having an affair," said Debbie Freeman, who met Sue about 12 years ago where they boarded their horses.
Detectives said Newby told friends that she had found e-mails, phone and text messages from her husband to another woman. He denied having an affair to detectives, according to the affidavit, but detectives saw him leaving the woman's house May 6, the same day the woman confirmed the affair.
Deputies seized Mark Newby's computer when they searched the home Wednesday.
BOYS AND HORSES
Freeman and Sue Newby became close friends and went on many rides in the Foothills together until a few years ago, when Sue married Mark and Freeman was in a debilitating accident.
"We talked about boys and horses - those were the two things she loved the most," Freeman said. "Every since I met her, all she wanted to do was find her soulmate and get married."
Sue Newby, who was 53 when she died, worked at Hewlett Packard Co. She was a woman who liked to dress up and spend the night out dancing.
"She had a full-length mink coat," Freeman said. "She wore it whenever she could."
She met Mark Newby when he came to her house to repair her furnace.
The repairman won her heart and hand within six weeks.
Mark Newby had been married three previous times. A woman he followed from Kansas to Idaho became his third wife.
He was arrested for misdemeanor battery of his third wife, Sandra Banahasky, in 2003, according to court records.
He was accused of grabbing Banahasky, throwing her down on a chair, and spitting in her face during an argument.
Banahasky told Detective Strolberg that Mark Newby was the "shadiest character I've ever known," according to the affidavit.
OTHER WOMAN AIDS INQUIRY
As part of their investigation into Sue Newby's death, Ada County detectives enlisted Newby's mistress. The woman told detectives she didn't know Mark was married until after Sue's death.
She agreed to make several "confrontation phone calls," in which she accused him of killing his wife, while investigators listened to and taped the conversations.
"To be 100 percent honest, I don't know what happened," Newby said during one of those calls, according to the affidavit. "I don't know exactly what happened."
That's something that may never be known.
On April 9, detectives went to the north rim of Rocky Canyon where Sue Newby died. Raney said Thursday there was little evidence to be drawn from the hoof and footprints there.
Newby's extensive injuries were consistent with what would happen to someone who falls 150 feet. No autopsy was conducted. On April 11, pathologist Glen Groben officially ruled the death an accident.
Mark Newby had his wife's body cremated before a memorial service on April 9.
CANYON STORY DIDN'T ADD UP
The Rocky Canyon area north of Eagle is perhaps the most popular riding spot in the Treasure Valley - it will be the site of the Eagle Extreme endurance races this weekend.
But experienced riders say they would never try to ride along the rugged north rim.
"There's no way that even a very calm horse would go to the edge (of the canyon)," said Stephanie Bennett of Middleton.
She and a friend, Martha McMurray, who lives north of Eagle, were out at the canyon Wednesday and stopped to look at where Sue was reportedly bucked off her horse.
"The more you look at it, said McMurray, an accomplished endurance rider, "the harder it is to imagine."
Katy Moeller: 377-6413
Patrick Orr: 373-6619
1/2
