Suspects in 2 Bend-area fatal shootings appear in court

(Update: Kasner hearing held)

The suspects in two separate Bend-area shooting cases made court appearances Tuesday by video from the Deschutes County Jail.

Alan Peter Porciello, 36, accused of manslaughter in the shooting death of a Sisters woman at his northeast Bend apartment, appeared in court Tuesday morning for his arraignment on formal charges.

Porciello, making his second court appearance, was arraigned on a formal indictment returned by a grand jury last Thursday.

He is charged with first-degree manslaughter and unlawful use of a weapon in the Saturday, Jan. 12 shooting death of Jenny Cashwell, 37, of Sisters.

They had met on a dating app and had gone to a park on their first date, then returned to his apartment at the Cedar West Apartments on Northeast Watt Way when the killing occurred.

Circuit Judge Wells Ashby scheduled Porciello’s plea hearing for Thursday, Feb. 7 at 11 a.m.

Cashwell’s family members gathered outside the courtroom after the brief hearing, some crying and embracing each other.

Later Tuesday, Joanna Kasner, 49, made her first court appearance in last Wednesday’s fatal shooting of Valerie Peterson, 58, on McGrath Road north of Bend.

Kasner apparently was restrained in a wheelchair when she appeared by video hookup from the jail where she was moved from St. Charles Bend over the weekend.

Circuit Judge Beth Bagley ordered that she continue to be held without bail on an initial murder charge and set a Jan. 29 arraignment on an expected formal indictment.

A judge granted prosecutors’ request last week to seal most court documents in the case.