Lewis County Sirens.com

It took more than 50 firefighters to contain flames that spread through pastures into a tree farm. / Courtesy photo by Lewis County Fire District 15

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Personnel from the state Department of Natural Resources are back on the scene today of a fire that scorched some 15 acres of farmland in Winlock yesterday.

Firefighters called at 5 p.m. to the 700 block of Nevil Road found an area of approximately 200 feet by 200 feet burning in a field that had been hayed, according to Lewis County Fire District 15.

As many as 50 members of five fire departments plus DNR joined them as wind gusts from the west pushed the flames into a tree farm and adjacent fields, threatening homes and outbuildings, Assistant Chief Kevin Anderson said.

He described the location as south of Nevil Road, roughly three-quarters of a mile west of North Military Road.

“With the wind conditions, it was an extended firefight,” Anderson said.

Heavy equipment was deployed by DNR to establish a line around the fire, Anderson said. It was stopped probably 20 feet from structures on its south side, he said.

Nobody was injured. District 15 resources were on the scene until 11:30 p.m. and DNR personnel monitored the area overnight and have returned today, according to Anderson.

DNR is looking into its cause, he said.

Anderson asks the public to take extra care to limit any sources of ignition.

The moisture content of vegetation remains very low and with the temperatures forecast over the next week and half, fire danger remains high, he said.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A second doctor who reviewed the case of the alleged shaken baby from Morton in which a Mineral man remains jailed has found something else caused the 4-month-old’s injuries.

Kyle Davison

Kyle Davison, 22, was arrested in early October and charged with  first-degree assault of a child after a doctor at Marybridge Children’s Hospital concluded bleeding on the child’s brain was consistent with non-accidental shaken baby syndrome.

Davison and the baby’s mother told police he was watching her when she began choking and stopped breathing and he tried to revive the infant then carried her to a neighboring apartment to get help. The little one was airlifted to the children’s hospital and put on life support.

Defense attorney Sam Groberg had another physician examine the child’s medical records, 3,200 pages going all the way to its birth, and even before that. He recently got the report back.

He said the conclusions are helpful to his client’s case.

“Basically it’s the doctor’s opinion it’s not shaken baby, but the symptoms are indicative of previous problems, and what happened when the baby started choking,” Groberg said late last week.

Groberg said the child had a documented choking problem, from a birth defect in its throat area.

He indicated he’s somewhat optimistic, since his doctor is the only one who has looked at all the baby’s medical records.

Lawyers on the two sides have been waiting on the report so they can proceed. Davison remains held on $100,000 bail.

On Thursday, they went before a judge in Lewis County Superior Court to set a new trial date. They chose the week of Sept. 8.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead told the judge he now will have to send the second doctor’s findings to his experts to look them over before they can go to trial.
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For background, read “Lawyer seeks second opinion on brain trauma in Morton child assault case” from Monday April 14, 2014, here

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 47-year-old man was arrested yesterday after deputies investigating a nighttime theft of about 1,600 gallons of fuel from a Silver Creek gas station searched his vehicle in Doty and discovered the bed of the canopied pickup truck held two large fuel tanks, a portable pump and a nozzle.

Detectives served a search warrant at the 100 block of Elk Creek Road in Doty and also found plug-in access key pads used to override gasoline pumps, according to court documents.

Jason A. Lewis was charged in Lewis County Superior Court today with first-degree theft, first-degree trafficking in stolen property and possession of methamphetamine.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Eric Eisenberg told the judge there were lots of firearms found at the residence and he would be seeking an arrest warrant for the property owner, Harold Lusk. He didn’t say specifically what for.

Charging documents describe the owner of the Texaco on the 2900 block of  U.S. Highway 12 contacting law enforcement on Monday after surveillance video showed three vehicles arrive and somehow pump about $6,000 worth of fuel without paying. Taken was regular unleaded gasoline, highway diesel and off-road diesel, according to charging documents.

Sherry Lyons called deputies again on Wednesday to report that new video showed the same people returned in the early morning hours, but were unable to activate the pump. The code had been changed after the first theft.

Detectives recognized the face of a passenger of one of the vehicles who then tried to move Texaco’s security camera so it no longer faced toward the pumps, charging documents state.

Detectives – using previous information they’d been told about Lusk and possible fuel thefts – compared his driver’s license photo with the video images and concluded he was one of the three, charging documents state.

More than a month earlier, detectives had been told by an unnamed person that Lusk and his associates had been stealing large quantities of gas from local stations, according to the documents. The same person said they were cooking methamphetamine at the property, but no mention was made in Lewis’s charging documents of meth-making materials located during the search.

However, found at the Elk Creek Road property were numerous containers of gasoline, including a 55-gallon drum of it stored in a barn where Lewis’s travel trailer was parked, according to the documents.

Two baggies of suspected methamphetamine were allegedly located in Lewis’s trailer.

Lewis reportedly admitted to detectives pumping gas at the Texaco, but said he used his credit card and said he’d purchased some fuel from the men in the video for $2 per gallon, according to the documents.

Eisenberg requested Lewis’s bail be set at $20,000, in part because it appears Lewis has an extensive criminal history in California, under a different name.

Defense attorney Bob Schroeter said Lewis denies being the person with the different name.

He noted Lewis has been in the area about two years, and he was confident he would be looking for a different place to move his travel trailer.

Charging documents state deputies found a lot of gasoline of at the Doty property, but not 1,600 gallons, suggesting some had been sold or otherwise distributed.

Law enforcement had not yet located Lusk or the third man as of this afternoon.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The accused prolific local trafficker of pain medications from both inside and outside prison pleaded guilty yesterday in a deal that could put him away for 12 years but avoid a third strike.

Forrest E. Amos, 31, was charged late last year in Lewis County Superior Court with leading organized crime and a multitude of other offenses following an ongoing investigation by the Centralia Police Department.

Law enforcement estimated that in 2011 when Amos was aggressively dealing Oxycodone, that he was the main supplier of the synthetic opiate within Lewis County, possessing and dealing thousands of pills a month.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead said he dropped the charge of organized crime, something police said Amos did by orchestrating drug dealing even after he was incarcerated. Amos pleaded guilty yesterday to an assortment of other offenses, he said.

Halstead also dismissed four counts of intimidating a witness, in a case from this summer in which Amos was suspected of planning from inside the jail to have associates hurt or pressure witnesses against him.

Amos is formerly of Napavine and Chehalis.

Halstead and defense attorney Don Blair will recommend to a judge that Amos be sentenced to 12 years, he said. A date for that court hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Amos’s sister Sylvia Pittman was charged also in June with witness intimidation, for allegedly delivering a “hit list” to another so-called supporter-conspirator.

Pittman, 27, pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of attempted witness intimidation and was sentenced yesterday to intensive inpatient drug and alcohol treatment; though if she fails at anytime during the following two years while she is under supervision, she could be sent to prison for almost two years, according to Halstead.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer announced today he will not file any criminal charges in connection with the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Travis Shive by a neighbor in Salkum in May.

“While the loss of life is tragic under any circumstances, it appears that Mr. Ritter acted in self defense,” Meyer stated in a formal news release today.

Ritter is Jack L. Ritter, 56, who told deputies he felt threatened because Shive had been on his front porch ranting, accusing him of shooting his dog and refused to leave.

Shive was unarmed, but Meyer said witnesses indicated Shive was the aggressor in the situation.

It happened the evening of May 10 on the 200 block of Stowell Road, about a half block from the Salkum Super market.

Shive had gotten a phone call telling him his dog had been shot by someone in the white house and arrived on his ATV to Ritter’s front yard, according to Meyer. He was at the wrong house, according to Meyer.

Ritter came out of the back of his house armed with .380 semi-automatic handgun, telling Shive to get off his property, he didn’t shoot his dog and Shive was about to go, but then went at Ritter, according to authorities.

Shive died from a gunshot wound that entered his abdomen and traveled into his chest. He was also shot in the left shoulder.

Ritter was afraid for his safety, Meyer said.

In the decline letter Meyer wrote to Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detective Kevin Engelbertson, Meyer wrote that the facts in the matter do not support criminal charges against Ritter.

At trial Ritter would claim self defense and the state would not be able to rebut the claim based on the available evidence, Meyer wrote.

Meyer said in cases where it’s a close call, that’s when he concludes a jury should decide.

He contrasted it with the Ronald Brady case of 2010 when Brady was charged with first-degree murder for shooting an unarmed suspected burglar outside a house he owned in Onalaska. Brady was convicted by a jury of a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison.

“The victim in that case was running away when shot,” Meyer said. “In this case, the victim was engaged in a struggle for a gun.”

The law is clear that a person can act in defense of themselves or others, Meyer said.

“But whether those actions are reasonable are going to be analyzed and scrutinized,” he said.

He said these kinds of cases are very fact specific.

“There isn’t a clear cut, this-is-the-line rule,” Meyer said. “Sometimes it’s going to turn on minute facts.”

More to come

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For background, read “Investigation continues into deadly Salkum dispute” from Wednesday  May 14, 2014, here