Lewis County Sirens.com

Sheldon J. Hardy, 40, of Chehalis, is charged with first-degree assault in connection with a Sunday incident with a knife on Southeast Dobson Court in Chehalis.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Both men stabbed in separate incidents in Chehalis over the weekend are listed in satisfactory condition at a Seattle hospital while their two alleged assailants remain held in the Lewis County Jail.

Michael Bylsma, 25, suffered a single stab wound to his chest on Saturday afternoon in the driveway of the home on Southeast 16th Street where he lives with his friend Kevin A.R. Dawkins.

Authorities say the two argued and fought while out to pizza at lunchtime and resumed the dispute as soon as they returned home.

The victim in Sunday’s late afternoon incident outside an apartment complex on Southeast Dobson Court, 19-year-old Andres F. Santiago, sustained a wound to his chest and a laceration across his lower lip, according to charging documents.

It happened during an alteration witnessed by several others, apparently over something said to Santiago’s 17-year-old pregnant girlfriend, charging documents indicate.

Sheldon J. Hardy, 40, who told police he’d told authorities he’d been drinking and done a few lines of methamphetamine, told police Santiago charged him, court documents state. Police described the two as neighbors.

Hardy was charged yesterday with first-degree assault and ordered held on $250,000 bail. Lewis County Superior Court Judge Richard Brosey said he’d set it at $50,000 over the weekend, but after hearing more of the allegation’s details and learning Hardy’s criminal history, he would increase the amount.

Dawkins, 24, who appeared before the judge during the same late afternoon hearing, is held on $100,000 bail. He is charged with second-degree assault.

Second-degree assault carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; first-degree assault can mean lifetime incarceration.

Exactly why the two cases didn’t produce the same charge isn’t clear.

Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher one of his co-workers filed one of the cases and a second co-worker filed the other.

“Not all stabbings are equal,” Meagher said.

Recently hired Deputy Prosecutor Mark McLean mentioned to the judge Dawkins’ significant criminal history, noting two recent felonies and offenses such as burglary and theft.

In Hardy’s case, McLean listed seven past felony convictions such as drugs and forgery as well as two for third-degree assault going back as far as 1996.

In both cases, the weapon used was described by police as a kitchen-like knife with a blade of approximately four inches.

Both victims were treated at Providence Centralia Hospital.

Bylsma was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Saturday. Airlift was unavailable because of weather on Sunday so Santiago was transported there by ambulance.

Charging documents in Saturday’s incident don’t relay what Bylsma and Dawkins argued about, but cite a witness as saying the pair went into the residence on 16th Street for a short period and came back out yelling at each other.

David Graves, who had taken them to Sahara’s Pizza before the incident, told police he watched Bylsma walking backwards down the driveway with Dawkins walking towards him, and he saw Dawkins punch Bylsma in the chest and then drop a knife on the ground and leave the area, charging documents state in a two-page summary.

The five pages outlining why prosecutors believed they had probable cause for the charge in Sunday’s case don’t reveal a specific reason for the disagreement between Hardy and Santiago either.

One witness tells police Hardy came outside and said something to the 17-year-old girl that Santiago could hear and Santiago approached the two. Hardy was yelling at her as the two men came together and Hardy took up a fighting stance, the documents state.

The documents alleged Hardy took a swing and Santiago stopped fighting, and while his hands were down, Hardy hit him again in the face, both blows apparently with a knife in hand.

Another witness said he yelled at the suspect, who stopped what he was doing, charging documents state.

Fellow resident Michelle Gibson took Hardy back to his apartment and was yelling, “I told you guys what would happen,” charging documents state.

Gibson told police Hardy had exhibited behavior and violence issues in the past, once pulling a knife on her, according to the charging documents.

She said she thought his behavior on Sunday afternoon  was because he’d been evicted earlier that day, for similar issues, according to charging documents.

Both men in both cases will go before a judge on Thursday for their arraignments.
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For background, read “Breaking news: Young man hospitalized after stabbing in Chehalis” from Sunday March 16, 2014, here

Kevin A.R. Dawkins, 24, of Chehalis, is charged with second-degree assault in connection with a Saturday incident with a knife on Southeast 16th Street in Chehalis.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Winlock mother of a 4-year-old boy who was abused by her live-in boyfriend will avoid jail time herself if she follows through with parenting classes and abides by other court ordered restrictions.

Ryon T. Connery, 31, was arrested at the end of November after the boy was found with numerous bruises and injuries and detectives learned of punishments inflicted such getting sprayed with a hose while forced to do pushups for various infractions such as wetting his pants and stealing food in the home.

Connery pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree child assault and was sentenced last month to 16 months in prison.

A soon as he was convicted, prosecutors charged the 23-year-old mother, Heather L. McNurlin, as an accomplice, contending she was present when the abuse was inflicted, and some of it was even her idea. The little boy was taken out of the home McNurlin and Connery shared and placed with his grandmother.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Joely O’Rourke said she and defense attorney Don Blair reached an agreement with a lesser charge of attempted assault of a child in the third degree, or conspiracy to commit the offense.

“She pleaded guilty, she didn’t get any jail time, but she’s on very extensive probation for the next two years,” O’Rourke said this afternoon.

O’Rourke said she thinks it’s in the best interest for the boy that his mother continue with parenting classes. They were already ordered by a family court judge in a separate action, as part of McNurlin’s requirements to regain custody of the boy, she said.

“She was really not the principle concern in that case, it was Mr. Connery,” O’Rourke said.

When the child was brought to the hospital at the end of November, he had a broken finger he said occurred when he dropped a weight on it, a scraped nose he said was from falling on his face trying to get away from a spanking and he spoke of being dunked in a dirty outdoor pool, according to charging documents.

A doctor who reviewed the case opined the youngster was malnourished and was the victim of starvation as well as abuse, both mentally and physically, according to the documents.

The mother said she and Connery had been in a dating relationship about four months. The abuse occurred between last July and into November, according to court documents.

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt agreed with the lawyers’ recommendation and sentenced McNurlin on Thursday to 364 days in jail, suspended for 24 months as long as she complies with court ordered requirements such as the classes.

She was also ordered to pay various fines and fees and is prohibited from having any contact with Connery.

Updated

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – For the second time in two days, a male was stabbed in the chest during a dispute in Chehalis.

The victim this afternoon is a 19-year-old who suffered apparently non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Chehalis Fire Department.

Firefighters were called just before 5 p.m. to 600 block of Southeast Dobson Court, but just as the ambulance was pulling out, a car pulled up to the fire station with the victim inside, Fire Capt. Kevin Curfman said.

“Friends, or family, had driven him here,” Curfman said.

Medics and the engine returned to the station, the patient was treated, bandaged and transported to Providence Centralia Hospital, according to Curfman.

The fire captain said he subsequently got word from medics after they returned from the hospital that the young man’s vitals were good and his wounds somewhat superficial.

Chehalis Police Department Officer Chris Taylor later said the victim was transported by ambulance to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, but did not know his condition.

Police arrested a resident of the apartment complex, Sheldon Hardy, 40 years old, for first-degree assault, according to Taylor.

Detectives are working on working out what the disagreement was about, Taylor said.

The 19-year-old is from Chehalis, although it wasn’t clear yet if he lived at the complex or was staying there with others, Taylor said.

Police and aid yesterday afternoon responded to a dispute in progress at a residence on Southeast 16th Street where a 25-year-old Chehalis man suffered a single stab wound to his chest.

Taylor said he believed that victim was airlifted to Harborview, and as of about 10 o’clock last night was stable, but in the intensive care unit.

A 24-year-old friend who lives at the same home, Kevin Dawkins, was taken into custody without incident at the scene and jailed for first-degree assault.

In both cases, the weapon used is described as a kitchen-like knife with a blade of approximately four inches, according to police.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The woman who secured a business license for the short-lived Hub City Natural Medicine was convicted yesterday of maintaining a building for controlled substances purposes.

A jury in Lewis County Superior Court took only about a half hour to find Lauri Spangler guilty, Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meager said.

Last spring, her trial on the same charge ended in a hung jury after about five hours of deliberations.

Spangler was charged in September 2012 in connection with what the city of Centralia said was an illegal marijuana dispensary, which was raided and shut down soon after it appeared on Tower Avenue the year before.

The storefront opened in early 2011 with a city-granted business license, one that slid past officials with a description of its nature as “education and sales of natural medicine.”

Police Chief Bob Berg’s initials were among those placed on the application as it went through the approval process, although jurors were told Berg authorized someone in his department to affix his initials to such paperwork.

Judge Nelson Hunt presided over the two-day trial.

Spangler was the only one of four individuals in the case to go to trial. The others’ cases have been settled with plea agreements.

Voters decriminalized recreational use of marijuana for those over 21 at the end of 2012, and the state is currently the midst of issuing business licenses to growers, processors and retailers.

Meagher said the standard sentencing range for Spangler’s offense is between one year and a day up to 20 months in prison.

Spangler appeared in court briefly this afternoon to set a date for sentencing, but her lawyer was unavailable, so she will return next Thursday to set a date.
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For background, read about the 2013 trial, “Centralia marijuana store case goes to trial” from Wednesday May 15, 2013, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The voice mail message was alarming.

To the White Pass Elementary School secretary: “Sorry Chris, but I’m going to f****** shoot everybody that goes to your f****** school, works there.”

So say prosecutors about the mother whose 7-year-old son was dropped off by a school bus driver in a neighborhood not his own earlier this week.

Cheryl A. Strong, 48, of Packwood, was arrested yesterday morning after school officials heard the message and placed the school into lockdown. She was charged today in Lewis County Superior Court with harassment, threats to kill, a felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Strong’s significant other said the household is in the process of moving from a home on U.S. Highway 12 to another about seven miles away up in the High Valley neighborhood. But they hadn’t moved yet, James Taylor said.

After school on Wednesday, he and Strong were home and saw the school bus pass by, but it didn’t stop, he said.

They thought maybe the bus driver was taking the child to the open gym program in town so they drove there and found he wasn’t there. They ultimately found the little boy wandering in the High Valley, he said.

The child said he told the driver that wasn’t where he was supposed to get off, but the bus driver told him to get off the bus, he said.

“I was just walking down the street, cause the driver said, it’s down the street,” the boy said.

Taylor said Strong is very protective of her only child, but her bark is worse than her bite.

“Cheryl sometimes she spouts off, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly,” he said.

The former grocery store clerk has lived in Packwood about nine years.

Yesterday morning, when she learned the school was on lockdown, she phoned to see about coming to pick up her son, according to charging documents.

She was told to come on in, but unaware a deputy was waiting for her vehicle to approach, a deputy who took her into custody just before 11 a.m.. She didn’t have a gun, according to court documents.

Strong denied calling the school or leaving a threat on its voice mail; but eventually told the deputy she didn’t mean anything she said and guessed she need to be more careful in the future, according to charging documents.

Her bail was set at $15,000 this afternoon, but she won’t be released as a no-bail hold was placed on her in connection with an unrelated case in Lewis County District Court.

The reason for the hold was her arrest yesterday was a violation of her conditions of release pending sentencing for reckless endangerment, an offense to which she pleaded guilty related to a single-vehicle wreck in August.

Her arraignment is scheduled for next Thursday.

Court benches are crowded with supporters of now-23-year-old Guadalupe Solis-Diaz Jr. this morning.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt found no merit in any of the arguments that he should reduce the nearly 93 year sentence he imposed on a former Centralia High School student convicted of a 2007 drive-by shooting in which nobody was killed.

Guadalupe Solis-Diaz Jr. was 16 years old when gunfire was sprayed along the east side of South Tower Avenue in Centralia, missing six bar patrons. Witnesses testified it was gang-related. Solis-Diaz maintained he was innocent.

“The sentence is precisely what the legislature intended,” Hunt said.

Solis-Diaz was back in court this morning, because the state Court of Appeals ordered the local court to conduct a new hearing, referencing various matters that should have been handled more thoroughly, given that he was a juvenile. The challenge was made in light of a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, specifically a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held a sentence of life without parole is forbidden for a juvenile who did not commit homicide.

Hunt listened to both attorneys, a juvenile psychologist and even the defendant before making his pronouncement.

“The sentence will remain unchanged, 1,111 months,” Hunt said.

The judge criticized the appeals court decision calling some of their conclusions insulting and ludicrous. He defended the original court-appointed attorney, whom the appeals judges said made a number of choices at sentencing that no reasonable attorney would have.

None of the mitigating factors raised by Solis-Diaz’s current lawyer are legally sufficient, Hunt said.

About 40 individuals looked on, many wearing T-Shirts in support of the convict, including Solis-Diaz’s mother.

“I’m not here to beg for mercy for Mr. Solis-Diaz,” defense attorney Robert Quillian told the judge. “He did what he did.”

But this is no homicide case, he said.

Quillian pointed out documents provided to the judge before this morning’s court session in which he offered a number of grounds for an exceptional sentence downward.

He asked the judge to re-sentence his client to 15 years.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Sara Beigh recommended the same sentence Solis-Diaz got the first time.

Soliz-Diaz was tried as an adult at the end of 2007 and convicted of multiple offenses, including one count of first-degree assault for each bullet that was fired.

The six assault counts were ordered to be served consecutively and each carried a mandatory extra five years because they were committed with a firearm. The sentence given was at the high end of the standard range.

Solis-Diaz, now 23, has been residing in the Lewis County Jail for more than a year, awaiting today’s hearing.

He took the judge up on his offer to speak today, saying he’s not perfect and never has been, and pointed out some of the educational accomplishments he’s made since being locked up.

“Let me show you I can be rehabilitated,” he said.

The red jail garb clad young man told the judge he prays every night, thanking God nobody got hurt. And he thanked the judge for having incarcerated him

“If I wasn’t locked up, I’d have been dead years ago,” he said.

Hunt included in his remarks that the changes in sentencing made by the state legislature were specifically to move away from rehabilitation and give more weight to accountability.

The legislative intent was expressively to curb gun violence among youth, Hunt said.

“The legislative intent is clear,” he said. “Serious violent crimes will be punished severely and older teens will be treated as adults,” he said.

Hunt said he knew he could have given an exceptional sentence downward, and chose not to.

One of the purposes of sentencing is to send a message to others, he said. And it worked in Centralia, according to Hunt.

“From the day this sentence was pronounced, there have been no similar crimes,” he said.

Quillian filed a notice of appeal.

Beigh noted she was scheduling a review hearing in 15 years, on March 5, 2029, in light of potential changes in state law.

The legislature is looking at allowing offenders who committed their crimes when under age 18 to petition the indeterminate sentencing board for release after 20 years, Beigh said.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS –  Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer has concluded a Centralia police officer’s fatal shooting of a 48-year-old man last month in the side yard of a house on  Elm Street was justified.

Officer Phil Weismiller, 34, was placed on administrative leave after the Feb. 13 encounter in which Joseph R. Wharton died.

Elm Street side yard

In a letter released Friday by Meyer describing his legal analysis to the lead investigator in the case, Meyer outlines a scenario that began when another officer wanted to talk with Wharton who he saw walking toward the back of a closed coffee shop in the middle of the night and ended a few blocks away a few moments later with Weismiller firing eight shots.

Wharton had a knife in his hand, had just unsuccessfully attempted to scale a fence, they were 13 feet apart and Wharton turned on Weismiller in an aggressive manner, according to Meyer.

“Officer Weismiller was left with no choice, but to employ the use of deadly force,” Meyer wrote.

Thurston County Sheriff’s Office detective Cameron Simper was the lead investigator.

Prosecutor Meyer notes he is authorizing the return of Weismiller’s service weapon to him.

Weismiller has been returned to restricted duty, according to Centralia Police Department Chief Bob Berg.

An internal use of force review board will convene on Monday to ascertain if the officer’s actions were within departmental policy, according to Berg.

In a formal statement issued today, Berg said he appreciates the swift review from the prosecutor and that his department sends its condolences to Wharton’s family for their loss.

“It is unfortunate and sad for all involved that a life was lost,” Berg wrote. “All of us have family and friends and the taking of a life shatters all of that. Having said that, I am thankful for the service of my officers, knowing the potential danger they face each and every day.”

More to come.

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Meanwhile, read Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer’s analysis here

For background, read “Police shooting: Former Oakville man died from multiple gunshots” from Friday February 14, 2014, here