Lewis County Sirens.com

Police Chief Bob Berg and Cmdr. Dave Ross watch over the house as they wait for a search warrant.

Update at 9:53 p.m.: Police just announced they arrested James M. Reeder, 25, of Centralia, for first-degree murder.

Detective Sgt. Pat Fitzgerald said the arrest was made in part because of inconsistent statements and information they got from other sources, he said.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CENTRALIA – Centralia police are investigating the death of two-and-a-half year old girl.

The mother’s boyfriend said he was bathing the child, left to get a towel and returned to find the toddler face down in the bath tub according to the Centralia Police Department.

The child exhibited some injuries, recent and otherwise, that caused officers some concern, according to police.

Aid and police called about 3 p.m. to a neighborhood called Hunter’s Walk off of West Oakview Avenue found the man performing CPR on the child. She was not breathing, police said.

She was taken by ambulance to Providence Centralia Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Detectives responded as a matter of routine, in the death of a child, according to police. No arrests have been made as of early this evening.

Yellow police tape blocks off the modular home. The crime scene investigation van is parked in front, while officers wait for a search warrant to go inside and investigate further.

Police Chief Bob Berg said they weren’t prepared to say if it was an accident or intentional.

“It’s death investigation,” Berg said.

Across the street neighbors Ray and Mary Stiltner said they were startled by loud knocking and opened their front door to see the unclothed child laying on their porch with a man.

“He was trying to do CPR on her,” Ray Stiltner said. “His attempts on that continued until they came.”

“He wasn’t doing it very well, I don’t think he knew how,” Mary Stiltner said. “It was very traumatic.”

She called 911.

Mary Stiltner said the man told them the little girl had been in the tub, he was gone for a few seconds and when he returned, she was under water.

Next door neighbors Scott and Cindy North said the woman had moved in about six months earlier.

Cindy North said she wasn’t sure who the man was, as the woman had a different boyfriend until recently.

“I didn’t hear anything, but a lot of times we’d hear the baby crying over there, like it needed attention,” Scott North said.

While neighbors said they saw the man taken away in a patrol car, detective Sgt. Pat Fitzgerald said he went voluntarily to be interviewed at the police department.

The mother of the child is being interviewed there as well tonight, Fitzgerald said.

Updated 9:28 a.m. on Thursday May 24, 2012

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

An appeals court has tossed out a felony conviction of a family practice doctor’s wife, saying the evidence was insufficient to prove Janna Wooten committed first-degree malicious mischief.

Wooten and her husband Dr. David Wooten were charged in 2008, after Dennis Kohl instigated a sheriff’s office investigation, saying the Wootens were his tenants and they trashed his house on Hadaller Road near Mossyrock before they moved out.

The decision filed yesterday by the state of Washington Court of Appeals Division II states that Lewis County prosecutors failed to show an unfinished remodeling project resulted in any damage to the property interest of another.

Kohl found the home with most of the sheetrock removed, only one functional bathroom and filled with garbage, according to three-judge panel.

Prosecutor’s arguments and theory were based on a misunderstanding of real property law, according to the decision.

The appeals court judges wrote that Kohl claimed the Wootens were  leasing with an option to buy and prosecutors agreed, despite evidence provided at trial that showed otherwise.

The Wootens were both put on trial but the decision only relates to the wife’s case, according to the three-judge panel.

The couple moved way from Lewis County after state health officials reinstated the doctor’s license with strict conditions that prevented him from prescribing narcotics and restricted his dealings with female patients. His practice was in Chehalis.

Centralia attorney Peter Tiller  filed the appeal for Janna Wooten. Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Sara Beigh argued for the state.

The unpublished opinion states David Wooten’s medical practice purchased the home before Janna Wooten married him.

He and his business partner Robert Miller signed a real estate contract and a residential purchase and sales agreement but were never given a deed and the seller Kohl never recorded either document, according to the opinion.

The judges wrote that after Kohl sold the house to Wooten Primary Care, Kohl borrowed $325,000 against house from an unidentified lender without telling the Wootens, then stopped making payments on the loan he took out.

Kohl continued collecting payments from the Wootens until December 2007.

The Wooten’s were evicted by Kohl’s lender.

There was no evidence in the record the unfinished remodeling project resulted in a loss to anyone, other than the Wootens, according to the appeals court.

Beigh from the prosecutor’s office said David Wooten appealed his conviction as well, but an opinion has not yet been issued in his case.

“I would expect that decision anytime, but you never can tell,” she said.

Once she receives paperwork from the appeals court, Beigh expects to summon Janna Wooten into Lewis County Superior Court and dismiss the case.

If she doesn’t show up, Beigh said, she will probably just dismiss it anyhow and not pursue it further.

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See State of Washington, Respondent V Janna L. Wooten, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Sunday morning wasn’t the first time 23-year-old Amanda Bassell was accused of taking a knife to a family member’s neck.

Amanda Lee Bassell

While the sheriff’s office said she’d recently been released from prison for felony eluding and then assaulting a prison guard, a closer look at her criminal history shows it was a conviction for such an act that got the Centralia area resident put away less than three years ago.

Bassell is being held on $500,000 bail in the Thurston County Jail, following her arrest for allegedly stabbing her sleeping mother in the throat at their Rochester home.

A judge found probable cause to hold her for attempted second-degree murder. Thurston County Deputy Prosecutor Craig Juris said he has until 5 p.m. tomorrow to file the charge.

Her mother Ruth Daarud, 42, is said to be in stable condition, following surgery on Sunday at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.

Bassell had accumulated four felony convictions in less than two years – for theft, eluding and one drug charge – before the summer day in 2009 that landed her in prison.

Court documents give the following account of July 22, 2009:

Bassell was pulled over about 3:15 a.m. in Centralia because she was driving a car without its headlights turned on.

She smiled at the officer when he told her to quit trying to restart the car, then popped the clutch, hammered the gas pedal and blew through a stop sign, traveling an estimated 50 mph as she crossed Pear Street.

The car was found later abandoned at exit 88 off Interstate 5.

Her uncle later told police she showed up in Rochester and begged him to give her a ride to Centralia so she could cash a check. As they were driving on Harrison Avenue, she saw someone she knew and told him to stop.

When he didn’t, she became enraged and held what appeared to be a steak knife to his throat, saying “I’m gonna cut you mother f*****.”

He grabbed her arm, but then she climbed head first from the back seat out the passenger window of a two-door Chevrolet Blazer. It was moving.

Police at the time said he had a slight cut on his forearm that didn’t need medical attention.

That evening, Centralia police were called to a home on B Street where they were told Bassell had been hanging around and wouldn’t leave. Officers found her sleeping in a children’s wading pool in the backyard.

She struggled. By the time she arrived at the jail, in the back of a patrol car, she had freed herself from the handcuff and locked the door.

Lewis County prosecutors asked psychologists from Western State Hospital to evaluate to determine if she was mentally stable.

A psychologist noted Bassell’s risk to others was above average but her presentation of a psychiatric disorder was not credible.

Bassell pleaded guilty in September 2009 to eluding in Lewis County Superior Court. For that, she was sentenced to just over two months.

She was also convicted of third-degree assault, making a so-called Alford plea, stating she did not remember the facts surrounding the accusation, but agreed the state could provide sufficient evidence of her guilt.

She was sentenced to 17 months in prison.

The report from Western State Hospital also offers details of Bassell’s life, some of which were self-reported by the young woman, who was described as “not a reliable historian.”

Bassell said she got good grades until as a high school student she enrolled in Running Start and began smoking methamphetamine.

She got married in April 2007. Information from the jail given to the psychologists noted she was associated with the Surenos gang.

Among her “impairments” listed by mental health specialists were alcohol and drug dependence and personality disorder.

“The defendant failed to move forward to an adequate adjustment to adulthood,” one of the psychologists wrote.

While incarcerated, she assaulted a guard, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. Court records show she pleaded guilty to third-degree assault in the summer of 2010.

She was released from prison on May 11, and was staying at her parent’s Rochester home until Sunday morning.
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For background, read “Breaking news: Rochester stabbing suspect found hiding in abandoned house” from Sunday May 20, 2012 at 7:55 p.m., here

Mark T. Robinson faces Judge Richard Brosey in Lewis County Superior Court.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 45-year-old man released after a 12-year prison term for a violent rape found himself in the Lewis County Jail as lawyers attempt to keep him locked up even after he’s served his full sentence.

Mark T. Robinson was a truck driver who picked up an 18-year-old girl at a Spokane truck stop who wanted a ride to Toledo, according to court documents.

Along the way, he pulled over, held a knife to her neck and told her she would pay for her ride whether she liked it or not, court papers state.

Afterward, when they made a bathroom stop, Robinson dragged her across a road, held her by her neck over the edge of a cliff and made her promise on the lives of her family not to report it, according to the documents.

The teen, who was left with bruises, swelling and bites, jumped out of the big rig at an exit on Interstate 5 near Toledo when she saw her boyfriend’s mother driving by and asked to go to the hospital, the documents state.

Robinson was convicted three months later in September 2000 in Lewis County Superior Court of  first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping.

He reportedly confessed to raping dozens of prostitutes in Pierce and King counties during the previous four to five years.

Robinson is among a small number of individuals convicted of sex crimes in Washington state where after their criminal sentence is completed, authorities attempt to retain them in custody for treatment until they are no longer dangerous, according to Senior Counsel Malcom Ross, at the Office of the Attorney General of Washington.

The process comes from the Community Protection Act of 1990, the first of its kind in the nation, according to Ross.

Ross filed the sexually violent predator petition for Robinson’s civil commitment in Lewis County Superior Court on May 10.

When Robinson appeared last week before Judge Richard Brosey, shackled and wearing red and white striped jail garb, the judge order him to be held at the McNeil Island Special Commitment Center, pending a trial in December to determine if the former Olympia area man qualifies for the detention.

Robinson was represented by Centralia attorney J.O. Enbody.

Documents in his court file describe an evaluation conducted a year ago at the request of the state Department of Corrections End of Sentence Review Committee.

A psychologist concluded Robinson suffers from sexual sadism and anti-social personality disorder.

Robinson told C. Mark Patterson Ph.D.. he was born and raised in a farming area near Olympia, and moved out of the family home at age 27.

He said he was bullied for being in special education classes and dropped out of school in the 12th grade.

He said in an interview with a detective, according to court papers, he got a thrill out of raping, but he confessed because he “wanted it over” and wanted help.

One of the incidents was corroborated by prostitute who said he raped her at knife point in a truck near the Tacoma Tide flats, according to the documents.

Robinson was also convicted of patronizing a prostitute in 1998.

The psychologist’s opinion was Robinson is likely to commit acts of sexual violence if not confined.

The planned December trial is civil, not criminal, according to Ross.

The state Attorney General’s Office typically handles these types of cases, in the county where the criminal conviction occurred.

The attorney, who has been handling such cases for the past decade, said such a petition is filed for approximately 1 percent of offenders who are released from prison in Washington.

He estimated the facility at McNeil Island houses about 300 individuals, about two hundred of which are actually committed and the others awaiting the outcome of their case.

In order for Robinson to be civilly committed, Ross will have to prove he suffers from a mental or personality disorder which makes him likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not locked up.

Among the next steps, is finding the victim, he said. He wasn’t sure where she is from, but said she was on her way to visit the father of her child in Winlock when she was raped.

Thurston County sheriff's deputies gather outside the vacant house where Amanda Bassell was found hiding.

Updated at 8:22 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

ROCHESTER – Deputies this evening arrested the 23-year-old woman wanted for allegedly stabbing her mother early this morning in Rochester.

Amanda Lee Bassell was hiding in an abandoned house on Guava Street and 193rd Avenue Southwest.

She was barefoot, soaking wet and exhausted when she was found, according to Thurston County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Greg Elwin.

She was taken away to be booked for attempted first-degree murder.

At least five deputies and a K-9 searched the neighborhood around the home at the 18700 block of Elderberry Street Southwest, where Bassell had been staying with her parents.

They tracked her all day.

They thought she was on foot, possibly hunkered down in the brush somewhere or hiding in an abandoned building, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.

“She’s been making phone calls trying to get help, and nobody wants to help her,” sheriff’s Lt. Greg Elwin said shortly after 6 p.m.

They found indications someone had crawled under a fence, which led to a vacant house just a few blocks away, a place known for attracting transients, Elwin said.

A K-9 deputy looked inside, saw wet foot prints, and Bassell ran out from the basement, he said. Two detectives caught her running across a field just after 7 p.m.

Bassell allegedly took a kitchen knife to her sleeping mother’s neck just before 4:30 a.m. today, stabbing her numerous times. The mother awoke and fended off the attack. Bassell fled before deputies arrived, according to the sheriff’s office.

Bassell was released from prison just before Mother’s Day, where she spent almost four years, much of it in solitary confinement, according to her cousin.

“She’s kinda messed up in the head, she’s paranoid,” her cousin Krystin Martinez said.

Martinez, who also lives in Rochester, said Bassell came to a barbecue at her house the day she got out and seemed alright, except for one odd thing she said.

“She told me pregnant with three babies from Jesus and she’s named all of them,” Martinez said. “That’s the only thing I noticed that wasn’t normal.”

Martinez said her cousin had married an individual associated with the LVL gang. The sheriff’s office earlier had said Bassell had strong ties to Lewis County and was believed to have gang affiliations.

Ruth Daarud, 42, was taken to Providence St. Peter Hospital where she underwent surgery. She was moved to another hospital today, because her daughter called her, according to Martinez.

Martinez said her aunt came out of surgery this afternoon and was stable, but might have some continuing problems.

“She’s going to make it, but it’s worse than they thought,” Martinez said.

Elwin said Bassell was incarcerated for an eluding case out of Lewis County, and assaulted a guard while she was in prison.

Thurston County Sheriff's Office Deputy Rod Ditrich and his K-9 partner Rex leave a brushy area off Elderberry Street Southwest in Rochester.

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Sheriff's deputies were called to Amanda Lee Bassell's parent's home early this morning.

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For this morning’s news story and background, scroll down or click here