Lewis County Sirens.com

Updated

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A Chehalis logging company has been cited for two serious violations in connection with the death of an 18-year-old employee who was crushed by a piece of equipment south of Boistfort last May.

Cole Bostwick of Winlock was setting chokers for a logging operation when a carriage was accidentally lowered onto him, killing him instantly.

Cole Bostwick

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office identified the employer as ENB Logging and Trucking, but the state Department of Labor and Industries reports it was ENB Logging and Construction Inc.

An investigation conducted by L&I found the employer did not ensure the chokerman was in the clear as the Danebo drift carriage was being lowered for slack and also that the business’s accident prevention program was not tailored to the needs of the operation, specifically that it didn’t explain or address the differences in the hazards of using a drift carriage and a motorized  carriage.

An assistant fire chief who responded to the scene on May 21 described the carriage in question as a metal piece roughly six feet long and not very wide that traveled along a cable to assist in retrieving logs. He estimated it weighed two tons.

The penalty assessed is $7,800, according to the inspector’s report dated Oct. 1.

ENB has appealed the citations, according to a spokesperson from L&I.

The accident occurred about 14 miles off Pe Ell McDonald Road, on property owned by Green Diamond Resource Co. The teen’s father was on the job with him.

Tyler Bryan

A Mossyrock logging company was cited for a serious violation earlier this year, after the death of a 21-year-old employee, who was struck by a log being pulled up a slope with a cable. Tyler Bryan, of Toledo, died on Feb. 10 at the site north of Morton.

Brintech Technical Logging Inc. did not appeal and paid the $2,600 fine, according to L&I spokesperson Elaine Fischer.

In that case, the same inspector found the employer did not ensure the three-man rigging crew was in the clear when a “turn” of logs was moving to the landing, according to the inspector’s report. The crew was within 40 feet of the skyline when the tail hold failed, causing the logs to fall towards them, according to the report.

John B. Leonard

And a March death from a logging injury in the Salkum area brought a citation for an Winlock logging business, according to Fischer.

A fine of $1,800 was assessed against TJB Enterprises Inc. for a serious violation.

John B. Leonard, 69, airlifted to a Seattle hospital on March 27 after he was struck by a large limb while working on acreage just north of the 2200 block of U.S. Highway 12.

The L&I report contends the employer did not ensure before falling that various conditions did not create a hazard.

TJB has appealed.

Ricky Riffe, in red, addresses his lawyer as his hearing winds down in Lewis County Superior Court this morning.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Convicted murderer Ricky Riffe will be headed back to prison now after he was sentenced today in a 30-year-old child sex crime case involving a young relative.

Riffe, now 56, was convicted almost a year ago in the 1985 kidnapping, robbery and shotgun deaths of Ed and Minnie Maurin, of Ethel. While awaiting trial, prosecutors filed charges that during the same time period, he had sexually abused his young stepdaughter.

The former Mossyrock man made an Alford plea last month, pleading guilty to indecent liberties, but admitting no guilt after a deal was struck between the two sides.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer and Riffe’s lawyer John Crowley both recommended this morning that he should serve six years and three months, the top of the standard sentencing range for the offense.

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt agreed.

Riffe is already serving nearly 103 years in the Maurin case, but has appealed.

Clad in red jail garb, Riffe never turned his heavily whiskered face toward the victim as she spoke. He declined an opportunity offered by the judge to speak on his own behalf.

Riffe denies any guilt in both cases.

“It is disturbing to the state that he cannot accept responsibility for anything he has done in his life,” Prosecutor Meyer told the judge. “But that’s on him.”

The now-grown woman, the daughter of Riffe’s long ago wife Robin, who is since deceased, took a chair next to Meyer when she told the judge what she hoped for.

“If there’s any chance of asking of him never, ever getting out,” I will,” she said, reading from notecards. “And please do not allow the monster of my past to be housed anywhere in Western Washington.”

With intermittent sniffles, and glances to her right where Riffe sat facing straight ahead, she said she knows and he knows what happened that November night in 1984. She was nine years old.

“You, my mother and your brother will rot in hell,” she said.

The judge also signed a lifetime no contact order between Riffe and the victim.

From among the handful of individuals in the audience, came a parting shot as Riffe was led away by jail guards.

Robin Riffe’s sister Tammi Graham raised her voice loudly: “Rick, I hope this label goes with you for the rest of your life.”

He was initially charged also with statutory rape, but that charge was dropped in the deal, part of which included Riffe agreeing not to appeal. The crime of indecent liberties, as it existed in the mid-1980s, involves sexual contact with a child younger than 14 years old.
•••

For background, read “Ricky Riffe makes Alford plea in 1980s child sex abuse case” from Saturday Sept. 6, 2014, here

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Three times this week, a different teenage boy waiting at a different school bus stop in Rochester has had a motorist stop and tell him he’s missed his bus and offer him a ride to school.

It happened most recently early this morning on 183rd Avenue Southwest by the bus barn, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office is asking the public to be vigilant.

All have occurred between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., but the vehicles  described are different; and the drivers have been said to be both male and female, sheriff’s Lt. Cliff Ziesemer said this morning.

The sheriff’s office has deputies in the areas in the mornings and expect to continue through at least Monday, trying to intercept another such incident, according to Ziesemer.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Brady said this morning a teen was waiting for a bus when a smaller black vehicle came down his driveway, and he was contacted.

Students and parents need to be alert and aware, and if possible wait in groups for the school busses, Brady said. And please call right way if something similar happens again, Brady urged.

“The faster these reports get to us, the faster we can get in the area,” he said.

The first one was reported to authorities on Tuesday, in which a 13-year-old boy told his mother that a woman in a black sport utility vehicle approached him while he waited for his bus about 6:30 a.m. on Monday at the 9700 block of 180th Way Southwest.

The Rochester School District has been passing along information on its Facebook page, as it has gotten reports from law enforcement.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – It could be as long as 10 weeks before the cause of death is figured out in the case of the 3-year-old boy who died under suspicious circumstances over the weekend.

The child was taken by ambulance from a Vader home to Providence Centralia Hospital on Sunday evening.

Very little information has been released.

Cowlitz-Lewis Fire District 20 was called to the 400 block of Main Street where CPR was already underway. The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office said only that they were investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy with suspicious circumstances.

An autopsy was conducted today, but final determinations can’t be made until the Lewis County Coroner’s Office gets back the results of toxicology tests, as well as the findings of various studies conducted by the pathologist, Coroner Warren McLeod said this afternoon.

Toxicology tests can take eight to 10 weeks, he said.

McLeod did not release the toddler’s name, or any other information.

He said he was still waiting for final confirmation of the child’s identity, and would not release it until after the legal next-of-kin have had enough time to notify other relatives.

McLeod said he was taking the extra time to make sure all the family beyond just the next-of-kin is made aware, because of the more sensitive nature of the case; it’s a child and the sheriff’s office is conducting an investigation.

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said late this afternoon she had no further information to release. The sheriff’s office has a briefing in the morning and if they choose to share anything more, it would be after that’s done, Brown said.

None of the officials authorized to speak have even stated where the child died, in Vader or at the Centralia hospital, nor have they said where the child lived.

Updated at 12:32 p.m.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The sheriff’s office is investigating a death after an aid call late yesterday afternoon to a Vader home where CPR was underway on a child.

Paramedics, firefighters and EMTs from five departments, plus deputies responded to the approximately 5:15 p.m. call at the 400 block of Main Street, according to Cowlitz-Lewis Fire District 20 Chief Richard Underdahl.

“I don’t have much I can say,” Underdahl said this morning. “Anything I can say, is the sheriff’s office is conducting an investigation on it.”

Crews were told by a 911 operator that it was a 3-year-old with breathing difficulty and someone there was performing CPR, according to Underdahl.

After responders arrived to the house, they continued CPR and conducted other life-saving medical interventions, he said. The child was transported to the hospital, he said.

Underdahl referred questions about the child’s sex and if the situation involved an injury as well as who was present at the house when they arrived, to the sheriff’s office.

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said only that detectives are investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy with suspicious circumstances.

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said an autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow morning.

“It was a bad day” Underdahl said.

“When something like this happens, everybody comes out of the woodwork,” he said, explaining why responders from as far away as Chehalis joined them, indicating it was the type of situation that calls for a lot people power.

Updated

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Centralia police and aid were called just after midnight to the railroad tracks near East Summa Street after a woman was struck by a passing freight train.

Forty-four-year-old Brenda V. Jones-Gonzales survived with what the Centralia Police Department called non-life-threatening injuries. Jones-Gonzales was bending down when she was hit in the shoulder and head, according to police.

Riverside Fire Authority Capt. Terry Ternan said the woman was just next to the tracks about 200 feet south of the crossing when firefighters arrived, and able to talk.

“When we found her, she was sitting next to a pool of blood,” Ternan said. “She said she didn’t get hit, she thought she fell down.”

The patient had a serious laceration on her head, but her biggest complaint was her shoulder, he said.

Ternan said his understanding was the conductor on the northbound train had seen her bending over by the track and then stumble; they tried to slow down, they stopped and called 911.

They knew they hit her, he said.

Some hair found on the end of what’s sometimes referred as a cow catcher at the front of trains was believed to be hers, he said.

Jones-Gonzales was cited for criminal trespass for being on the tracks, according to police, and then released.

She was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital where she was treated and then was transferred to an undisclosed hospital.

It’s a good reminder of why it’s trespassing to walk along or cross train tracks in undesignated areas, Ternan said.