Lewis County Sirens.com

Elijah M. Garibay, 25, of Elma, consults with defense attorney Bob Schroeter in Lewis County Superior Court during his bail hearing.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The victim of a beating that led to a nighttime police search through a Centralia neighborhood for suspects was a key witness in a trial that ended earlier this week in the conviction of a fellow heroin user.

Thomas Pennypacker, 32, of Chehalis, testified against Lonzo Lawson who was sentenced to more than eight years for breaking into a Napavine bar and stealing almost $15,000.

But that’s not what prosecutors think necessarily specifically led to the events on Tuesday night in the parking lot of the Peppertree Motel on Alder Street.

“I’m inclined to believe this is related to other individuals,” Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke told a judge.

The suspects allegedly called Pennypacker a snitch and said they were going to kill him as he was choked, repeatedly shocked with a stun gun and punched in the face. He escaped the car he had arrived in with the men and ran to the motel office for help, according to charging documents. The car sped away and two of the three men from it were captured in the area within the next hour and a half, according to police.

The Centralia Police Department initially said the victim was with the subjects because he was trying to buy heroin.

O’Rourke said it looked like a beating under the guise of a drug deal. “A pick ’em up payback kind of thing,” he said.

He wouldn’t confirm if Pennypacker was one of law enforcement’s so-called confidential informants, drug case defendants that can get certain plea deals if they cooperate with police in setting up drug dealers.

“All I can say is he is involved in cases with the state,” O’Rourke said yesterday afternoon, noting the recent trial.

Yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court, two of the three suspects were charged with multiple offenses including intimidating a witness. Judge Richard Brosey ordered them held on $250,000 bail pending their trials.

Joseph M. Hanks, 30, is from Rochester. He was described by Pennypacker as “somewhat of a friend” who picked him up Tuesday night because they were going to buy some heroin.

Elijah M. Garibay, 25, has an Elma address listed as his residence in court documents.

Pennypacker indicated in the documents he didn’t know Garibay, that he was just one of two men Hanks unexpectedly picked up as they were driving to get drugs.

Charging documents give the following account:

A Centralia officer interviewed Pennypacker at the hospital where he was being treated for his injuries, which included Taser injuries along his face and shoulder.

Pennypacker told the officer he hadn’t known anyone else was coming with him and Hanks, and it concerned him when the two men were picked up.

He said after they arrived at the Alder Street motel, he handed $60 to Hanks, who gave it to one of the passengers. That man got out and almost immediately Garibay who was in the backseat put his arm around Pennypacker’s throat and began strangling him. Then Garibay began Tasing him in the face and side.

Hanks got out and began punching Pennypacker in the face full force, he said.

That’s when they called him a snitch and said they would kill him. Then he fled to the motel office and they sped away in Hanks’ Honda.

Motel manager Kaitlin Mendonca, in her vehicle, chased the car to the nearby dead end of Long Road, where they got out and left on foot.

The 25-year-old said today she wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but wasn’t going to let them just drive away.

Court documents indicate Hanks was spotted in a field and turned himself over to officers.

Later in the night, law enforcement was advised a resident few blocks to the north was holding at gunpoint a suspicious male discovered in a yard.

Dan Henderson, 44, and a Centralia city council member, turned the man – who was Garibay – over to arriving officers. Some of his clothing he had allegedly shed was found nearby.

Police said yesterday no heroin was found when the car was searched. Police did find a stun gun, drug paraphernalia and small plastic bags, among other things, according to charging documents.

It’s not clear who the third suspect is, but charging documents for Garibay and Hanks which describe the evening’s events don’t mention the third man assaulting the victim.

Garibay and Hanks are each charged with intimidating a witness, second-degree assault, second-degree robbery and harassment.

Garibay’s prior convictions include one felony and 11 misdemeanors. Hanks’ include five felonies and 20 misdemeanors.

Their arraignments are scheduled for June 27.
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For background read:

• “Attempted drug deal turns violent in Centralia” from Wednesday June 19, 2013, here

• “Lawyers: Who broke into the safe at Frosty’s tavern?” from Wednesday June 12, 2013, here

Joseph M. Hanks, 30, of Rochester, listens to defense attorney Bob Schroeter in Lewis County Superior Court during his bail hearing.

Police detain one individual on Long Road in Centralia following an assault in the parking lot of the Peppertree Motel. / Courtesy photo by Raymond Smith

Updated at 11:16 a.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

An individual who was trying to buy heroin instead was beaten and shocked with a stun gun by the three males he met up with last night in Centralia, according to police.

Police were called about 9:45 p.m. to the parking lot of the Peppertree Motel on Alder Street by citizens who saw what was happening and called 911, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Officers learned the participants were inside a car when the victim was choked, punched and then zapped with a hand held Taser, according to police. The 32-year-old Chehalis man was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital.

Police from Centralia and Chehalis, as well as the state patrol, searched the neighborhood, eventually taking two suspects into custody. The third has not been located.

Sgt. Kurt Reichert said the victim fought back and didn’t give up his money. He didn’t yet know this morning the dollar amount involved.

It’s not clear if the trio even had any drugs they intended to sell, according to Reichert. None were found, he said.

One suspect had fled in the car to the dead end of Long Road, pursued by a witness, and then departed on foot, according to police. Joseph M. Hanks, 30, of Rochester, was soon located in a grassy field and detained, according to police.

An individual who jumped out of the way of the fleeing vehicle and fell down was hurt, so they were taken to the hospital with unknown injuries, Reichert said.

The other suspect turned up a few blocks away on South Cedar Street, being held at gun point by a citizen, Reichert said. Elijah M. Garibay, 25, of Elma, was then taken into custody.

After the car was impounded, police found the stun gun device, but no heroin, according to Reichert.

Hanks and Garibay were booked into the Lewis County Jail for robbery, assault and attempted delivery of a controlled substance. Police say Garibay also had outstanding warrants.

“This is what we had last year,” Reichert said.

He was speaking of the seller of purported medical marijuana who got into the car of two teenagers he thought were customers on the street in front of his East Van Buren Street home.

In that mid December case, 28-year-old Joshua Z. Smith was robbed of his weed at gunpoint and struck in the face before he bailed out of the vehicle. Smith shot at the car as it departed and was recently charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, while armed.

The Tacoma area residents have since pleaded guilty for their role.

State Route 505 at North Military Road. / Courtesy photo by Jo Withrow

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A giant oversized load on a semi truck that blocked state Route 505 to Winlock for more than four hours last week was a tunnel boring machine on its way to China, according to the Washington State Patrol.

Troopers were called about 12:45 p.m. on Friday when one of its wheels went into a ditch as it tried to make the turn to continue up North Military Road, a state patrol spokesperson said today.

Trooper Will Finn  said they had to call some folks up from Kelso to help get the big rig on its way.

Later that night, it got stuck again trying to make a corner in Centralia.

And it was stalled the night before at state Route 506 and Military Road near Vader.

Finn said he learned the load originated in Canada and traveled through Montana and Idaho trying to get to the port in Grays Harbor so it can be shipped across to Asia.

It’s just one of many trying to make the same journey, according to Finn.

“There are 16 of them, it’s the third one they’ve moved,” he  said.

He said he wasn’t actually certain if each load is an entire tunneling machine or just components, but he did know the truck, trailer and load that had so much trouble on Friday was 120 feet long and 17 feet tall.

He wasn’t sure why it didn’t choose to travel on Interstate 5, and asked about that, he said.

“I guess the company hauling it didn’t want to deal with I-5 because they didn’t want to deal with the over passes,” he said.

His understanding was each time it would come to an overpass too low to clear, it would have to exit the freeway and get back on.

Lewis County granted the travel route permit, but if it allows another one, things will be different.

“I can virtually guarantee we’re not going to go through that again,” Tim Elsea, the director of Lewis County Public Works said today.

Elsea said he doesn’t yet have all the details, but they are looking at the situation.

He described the procedure for such permits: The pilot company proposes a route and the county looks into height and weight restrictions that would prevent travel on certain roads and over certain bridges, Elsea said.

“But we don’t check if they can make all their turns,” he said.

Elsea said he followed the same protocol as usual for issuing a route permit.

The pilot company originally wanted to go a different way, but there were three bridges on Jackson Highway that aren’t authorized for anything above normal weight loads, he said.

“I will say the haulers kind of felt like we were too restrictive of them because of the bridge collapse in Skagit County,” he said. “But that’s not it at all, it was our normal process.”

Elsea said the truck managed to get through at state Route 505 by taking some of the axles off, making the turn and then putting them back on.

In Centralia at about 8:30 that night, the same giant oversized load blocked an intersection at Mellen and Yew streets, long enough for the owner of a parked car to be located to so they could be asked to move their car in order for the truck to get around a corner, according to the police department.

Finn said it’s unknown when the next 13 similar loads may attempt to travel through the area.

State Route 505 at North Military Road. / Courtesy photo by Jo Withrow

Updated at 12:15 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Efforts to quash illegal pain pill sales in Centralia have led to an inmate who allegedly headed up a drug trafficking organization from prison, using fabricated telephone numbers to direct and set up deals between suppliers, sellers and customers, Centralia police revealed today.

The investigation that began after the local man was incarcerated in January has caught 20 other individuals in four counties and culminated yesterday in searches at New Beginnings Wellness Centers in Tumwater and Aberdeen, which involved the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, according to the Centralia Police Department.

At the center of the alleged drug ring is 30-year-old Forrest E. Amos, formerly of Napavine, according to police.

It’s mainly Oxycodone, Centralia police’s Anti-Crime Team Sgt. Jim Shannon said this morning.

“We’re doing everything we possible can to reach out as far as we possibly can to cut that off at its source,” Shannon said.

The organization has primarily been involved in illegal delivery of prescription pain relief medication but also has illegally facilitated medical marijuana authorizations, according to Centralia police.

Intercepted prison phone conversations and surveillance of the ensuing drug deals have resulted in arrests, identification of more suspects and further arrests over the past several weeks, according to police.

In the process, authorities have confiscated approximately 1,650 illegal prescription pills with a street value of as much as $66,000, according to Shannon.

Besides Centralia and Chehalis, the arrests have been made in Napavine, Longview, Lacey and at Sea-Tac Airport, according to news release from the Centralia Police Department.

Some of the 20 people ‘caught” have not been arrested, but their cases referred to prosecutors for evaluation of possible charges, according to the news release.

It’s not a marijuana investigation, but officers have also confiscated 156 marijuana plants, one and a half pounds of dried marijuana, according to police.

The investigation has included the seizure of five vehicles, $19,000 cash and a house in south Chehalis, according to Shannon.

Shannon said they have more arrests to make today.

The list of potential charges for Amos and others is long, including  leading organized crime, extortion, identity theft, fraud, first-degree assault, delivery and/or possession with intent to deliver controlled substances, as well as Medicaid fraud, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Shannon said yesterday’s search warrants served in Tumwater and Aberdeen focused on medical records and other documents. New Beginnings Wellness Centers is operated by a nurse practitioner named Sharol Chavez, he said.

DEA agents and the U.S Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General will be reviewing them for possible federal violations, according to Shannon.

Other entities involved in the investigation include the Longview Police Department Street Crimes Unit, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Homeland Security Investigations and the Washington State Department of Corrections Internal Intelligence and Narcotics Group, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Police Chief Bob Berg called it a complicated and lengthy investigation which would not have been possible without the cooperation of several agencies.

“The chief suspect in this case, while not in the community, continued to have a major impact on our community,” Berg stated in the news release. “The continued good work of the department’s Anti-Crime Team has been a contributing factor in the downward trend of crime in Centralia.”

Amos is serving time for possessing prescription drugs without authorization. He was sent to prison in January, according to Shannon.

Police allege Amos attempted to hide his prison phone conversations by extorting personal information from sex offenders in prison and using it to set up fake phone accounts. Inmates can communicate with outsiders via collect phone calls, according to Shannon.

Shannon said prison investigators caught onto the telephone scheme early on.

Amos allegedly arranged with a co-conspirator to have contraband smuggled in as well, according to Centralia police.

Police made the investigation public today because it is nearing its completion at the local level, according to police.

Details about the mentioned first-degree assault were not immediately available.

The residence local authorities are in the process of seizing came out of the arrest of Justin Currier in February, according to Shannon. His team was investigating the pain pill trade and just incidentally turned up more than 150 marijuana plants at Currier’s home, he said.

Tom Potter of Pe Ell checks out the 1941 biplane that nearly killed its pilot earlier today.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – An 85-year-old man was run over by a plane today at the Chehalis-Centralia Airport.

Firefighters called just after 3 p.m. said the small rear wheel ran over his chest after he was knocked to the ground when the plane started up and circled around on the ground.

Getting run over was bad, but it could have been so much worse.

The open cockpit biplane built in 1941 by Boeing has a shiny silver propeller that stretches roughly 10 feet from end to end, nearly reaching the ground.

“I kept telling him to stay down,” said Merrill Stulken, an Alaska resident who was at the airport fueling up his plane.

The plane shouldn’t have started up, but it did, according to Stulken.

“If he’d have put his head up, he’d be gone,” Stulken’s brother-in-law Tom Potter of Pe Ell said.

The plane circled over the man four times and then stopped, according to Stulken.

“God intervened,” Stulken said, calling the outcome of the accident a miracle. “I honestly thought I was gonna to see a man be killed,” he said.

It’s a mystery what happened, according to Stulken.

Stulken was getting ready to take a flight over Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and his farm in Boistfort, he said.

The pilot had a dead battery and asked him for help, he said. They were contemplating getting it going by cranking the propeller by hand.

The plane was parked, and shut off, he said. The fuel was off and before the pilot got in the cockpit, the two men rotated the propeller about one-third of a turn to check it out, Stulken said.

That’s when it started prematurely, he said.

The pilot, from Lakewood, was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital with a cut to the back of his head.

Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Pat Gilligan said his injuries must not have been too bad, because they got a phone call from the hospital within hours telling them he was headed in a taxi back to the airport to fly home.

The fire department didn’t release the injured man’s name, but the plane is registered to John Dimmer in Tacoma. The hospital said a John Dimmer was treated and has been released.

Stulken and his brother-in-law were back at the airport later this evening, surprised to hear the pilot planned to fly tonight. The plane was still parked however and the injured man wasn’t there.

Stulken estimated the tail of the aircraft weighed 500 to 1,000 pounds.

“He’s got true grit, he’s a tough old bugger,” Stulken said.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 23-year-old Centralia resident is being held on $500,000 bail following his arrest for allegedly taking pictures with a cell phone of himself having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

The incident came to light when his ex-girlfriend contacted authorities, saying he returned her cell phone to her with the explicit images on it.

Jonathan M. Margart went before a judge in Lewis County Superior Court in Chehalis yesterday afternoon charged with two felonies.

Defense attorney Bob Schroeter said he didn’t argue for a lower bail amount, leaving that for the attorney who would subsequently be appointed to represent Margart.

He said his temporary client was a hard working guy, employed at both Ayala Brothers Furniture and Carls Jr. restaurant.

According to the allegations outlined in the charging documents, Margart befriended a local middle school girl on Facebook, they talked on the phone a time or two and once met up at Fort Borst Park in Centralia.

The girl told a Centralia police detective they met on a recent Saturday and went to McDonalds, to the Outlet Mall and then Margart got a room at Motel 6, according to charging documents.

He left and returned with a fifth of Bacardi rum and his friends visited him periodically throughout the evening, the documents state.

The teenager told the detective she was intoxicated but recalled him holding his cell phone while they were engaged in sex, although she thought it was in the “flashlight mode,” charging documents state.

The girl said she allowed him to take one picture of her naked, but would not have agreed to photos during sex, according to charging documents.

She said she told Margart she was 14; when interviewed, he told the detective she said she was 18, according to charging documents.

Margart told the detective the girl was drunk and it was the girl who suggested he film her, according to the documents.

Margart was was jailed last week by his community corrections officer for violating the conditions of his parole by being in the company of a minor.

He was charged yesterday with sexual exploitation of a minor as well as third-degree rape of a child.

The exploitation is punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison. It’s related to causing a person under 18 to engage in sexually explicit conduct knowing the act will be photographed or part of a live performance.

The rape charge carries a maximum penalty of five years, and is based only upon the age difference between the two parties; a victim who is age 14 or 15 and a perpetrator who is at least 48 months older.

Margart’s criminal history includes convictions when he was 19 years old for third-degree child molestation and second-degree child molestation, according to court documents.

His chance to make his plea will come at his arraignment, scheduled for next Thursday.

Small fires set inside the empty Symons warehouse didn’t harm the building.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CENTRALIA – Authorities don’t believe last night’s fire set inside a vacant warehouse in a Centralia neighborhood is connected to a string of arsons last month, but they still want to find out who lit it.

Firefighters called about 7:30 p.m. to a report of smoke coming from the large brick-sided building found a fire small enough they put it out with a portable extinguisher.

It was in the center of the structure, fueled by books and other items assembled from the facility, Riverside Fire Authority Assistant Chief Rick Mack said.

There was actually more than one fire set, but all were on the concrete portion of the floor and none caused any structural damage, he said.

Mack said it didn’t seem as though someone was trying to destroy the building. It could have been devastating if that happened, he said.

“But still, that’s not okay,” he said.

Neighbors call it the cannery, but Mack described it as a cold storage warehouse.

It takes up a city block in between F and G streets and Fourth and Fifth streets.

One of the reasons authorities aren’t linking last night’s incident to the five fires in May is none of those buildings were entered, Mack said.

In a three-hour span during the early morning hours of May 3, fire crews were called to two churches, a coffee stand and Centerville, the western store at the north end of the Centralia Outlets. After daylight, they learned of a failed attempt at a third church.

Longtime area resident Hazel Ragan recalls the now vacant warehouse once was owned by Ocean Spray and last belonged to Symons Frozen Foods. Ryan Rayburn who lives across the street said it a busy operation until about two years ago.

“Squatters probably, that what I figured it was,” Rayburn said. “Squatters in there using the vents for a chimney.”

Police are working with Mack, who is the city’s fire investigator. They don’t have any suspects yet, he said this afternoon.

“We did recover some evidence from the fire,” Mack said. “We’ll be using that as we move forward.”

Mack is asking anyone who saw anyone in the area before the fire to please contact him or the Centralia Police Department.

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For background, read: “Early May north Centralia church fire could also be arson, officials now say” from Monday May 20, 2013, here