Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The cause of the fire that killed a 94-year-old Centralia man over the weekend is likely to remain a mystery, according to authorities.

Robert Richard Zorn was found dead in his home Sunday morning of smoke inhalation, and a good-sized hole had burned through his dining room floor.

It had burned itself out and was cool when firefighters arrived, Riverside Fire Authority Assistant Chief Rick Mack said this morning.

“It just appears to be some tragic accident that we can’t define,” Mack said.

From the outside, the only evidence there had even been a fire at the house on the 1400 block of Johnson Road was the windows were sooted over, according to the fire department. Inside, there was heat and smoke damage to much of the single-story house.

The situation was discovered when one of Zorn’s brothers went to check on him Sunday morning. Investigators determined it had occurred sometime in the previous 24 hours, based on when Zorn was last seen.

Mack said the remains of a chair were found in the approximately 5-foot by 3-foot hole that burned through the carpet, the hardwood floor and the subfloor. It had self-extinguished for lack of oxygen, he said.

Investigators couldn’t find any reason electrical or otherwise for the fire, Mack said, and the cause will be listed as undetermined. Nothing was missing from the home to suggest an intruder or any foul play, he said.

There was evidence Zorn had tried to escape; he was found in a back room, Mack said.

An autopsy yesterday concluded he died from asphyxiation due to inhalation of toxic and combustible materials; the manner is accidental, according to Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A Chehalis police officer resigned in the midst of investigations into possible misconduct during his assignment as a school resource officer involving a high school student.

Officer Jeff Elder quit the department last month, as his superiors were preparing to launch an internal investigation into whether he violated ethical standards and policies involving alleged sexual contact with a girl from W.F. West High School.

A criminal investigation was completed at the end of July and the prosecutor determined no crime occurred and no charge should be filed. If a crime did occur, the statute of limitations has passed, Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes wrote in a memo to the investigating detective.

The allegations came at the end of June from a now-22-year-old woman who disclosed incidents that occurred when she was a freshman and a sophomore, according to law enforcement incident reports.

Chehalis Police Chief Glenn Schaffer said the planned internal investigation won’t be done now.

“Jeff’s resignation was completely voluntary,” Schaffer said. “The reason we did not get into an administrative review is he resigned before it began.”

Schaffer said this week he wouldn’t speculate as to whether any department rules had been broken, as those answers could only come from a review.

The allegations came to light when the young woman reported to the Mason County Sheriff’s Office in June she may have been drugged and raped, and then also mentioned an unrelated incident, that years earlier she had an intimate encounter with a law enforcement officer – she said she was certain she was 14 or 15 years old when it happened, according to documents from the Mason County Sheriff’s Office.

They contacted the Chehalis Police Department, which in turn asked the Washington State Patrol to investigate.

State patrol detectives concluded the encounter in question, sexual intercourse, at Elder’s home occurred days after the girl’s 16th birthday in 2005.

According to case documents, the girl – whose identity is blacked out – had left W.F. West midway through her sophomore year and moved to Thurston County, but sometimes babysat for the Elder’s children.

She said she met and came to to know Elder when she was a freshman and he was the school resource officer.

In a transcript of her interview with a Mason County sheriff’s detective she describes Elder as tapping or grabbing her buttocks “often” at school (and once at the police department), sneaking her through the back into school dances and and one time bringing animal crackers to her when she was at home and suspended from school.

She also told of a time when she was at the Elder’s home with his wife and children when he allegedly pushed her against a wall and started “making out” with her.

She described the same day, across the street at a baseball field, the two had “wrestled” for her purse and he kissed her “really quick.”

She told the detective Elder gave her his old handcuffs as a gift.

He would also say to her a lot “You make me hard” and also, “You know, 16’s the age of consent”, she told the detective.

Elder, now 41, declined to comment.

Elder was the school resource officer until the end of March 2004, according to Schaffer, while she was a freshman.

She graduated from high school in 2007.

Elder had asked to step down at the same time he was reprimanded for taking two female students off campus so one could pick up her homework and making a traffic stop with the girls in his car, according to documents from the Chehalis Police Department.

He was suspended for two days. At the time, the high school principal told Elder’s superior she hoped Elder would still continue with that assignment.

The school resource officer works primarily at the high school as a resource for the school district and a representative for the  police department, interacting with the students, according to Schaffer. They’re there to teach and be a positive role model, he said.

Officer Troy Thornburg had been in the position the past several years, but last year because of budget issues, the program was put on hold.

Both Schaffer and Chehalis School District Superintendent Ed Rothlin this week gave both Thornburg and the program high praise and said if it weren’t for the finances, they would continue it and hope to in the future.

The young woman who made the allegations couldn’t be reached for an interview.

Also in the state patrol’s investigation is a letter from the young woman’s husband, that says he is deployed in Afghanistan, and asks them to write a letter to get him a compassionate reassignment to Joint Base Lewis McChord so he can be back by his wife’s side as quickly as possible during this time.

A sergeant of the investigating state patrol detective said yesterday he didn’t know if such a letter had been generated.

A sergeant at the Mason County Sheriff’s Office said the young woman’s other allegation – that she may have been drugged and raped in an unrelated case – was investigated and their prosecutor declined to file any charges.

Elder started with the police department in November 1994, was put on administrative leave July 7 and resigned Aug. 17.

Sept. 11, 2011

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

“My question has always been, then, to myself, where do we get the men and women who do that?”

– Guest speaker Earl Johnson, of Poulsbo, telling of meeting New York City firefighters coming up the stairs into the World Trade Center as he and others descended after a passenger plane had crashed into the building on Sept. 11, 2001

Photo by Bradd Reynolds / Copies of this image may be ordered from Reynoldsportraits@comcast.net

Photo by Bradd Reynolds / Copies of this image may be ordered from Reynoldsportraits@comcast.net

Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown looks in a car at the Toledo park and ride to see if any valuables are laying in plain view.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – When you take advantage of the sunshine this weekend to leave your car behind and put the boat in the water or go for a walk on a public trail, you might return to find you’ve been the victim of a vehicle prowl.

Or not.

It’s also possible you’ll discover a green postcard-sized note on your windshield indicating someone has checked to see if your doors were locked.

Lewis County sheriff’s deputies and volunteers will be providing extra patrolling around places where most car break-ins have been reported.

Trail heads and boat launches as well park and rides are among those locations targeted.

Sheriff Steve Mansfield’s new program which began this week involves leaving a card either congratulating the driver for locking up, or reminding them they’ve left themselves vulnerable to a theft.

The idea is to encourage folks to lock their doors every time they park. A lot of this kind of crime is easily preventable, according to the sheriff’s office.

Today, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown was out and about, trying to get a sense of what’s out there.

At the Blue Creek Boat Launch parking lot off Spencer Road south of Ethel, she peered into nine vehicles and checked their doors.

All but one were locked, although a fishing pole lay visible on the back seat of one of them.

Thieves will go to the trouble of breaking a window even for something like a fishing pole, Brown said.

More and more, they’re seeing people leave devices like iPods, GPS units and cell phones in plain view inside their cars, she said.

“I think my biggest hope is thieves will come in the area and see these (green cards) and know we’re actually working the area,” she said.

One location with more problems than most is the  Rails to Trails parking area off Highway 603, south of state Route 6, according to Brown.

“Almost all the car prowls we’ve had (there) have been unlocked,” Brown said. “Only a couple of them we had windows broken.”

Chief Brown leaves a card on a vehicle at the Blue Creek Boat Launch notifying the driver the area was checked and congratulating them for locking their doors.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A Randle man who says he was just trying to keep a 16-year-old girl away from drugs when he bound her hands with electrical tape has been sentenced to eight months in jail.

Jeffrey S. Plaas, 45, pleaded guilty this week to unlawful imprisonment and fourth-degree assault, domestic violence. He denied the teenager was his girlfriend or had ever been.

“My client’s motivation behind this was genuine, he has a close friend who happened to be getting into the drug scene,” defense attorney Jacob Clark told a judge on Wednesday. “His actions behind his motivation was unquestionably wrong, and I think he understands that.”

Plaas was arrested early last month after deputies responded to a call about a dispute between a male and a female behind a cafe in Randle. Deputies were told the male had slapped the female, and the pair were thought to have walked to the area of McKay Street.

Deputies hearing screaming and shouting from Plaas’s open garage found the teenage girl with a bloody nose and her hands tied behind her back; she said Plaas was her boyfriend, according to authorities.

Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead on Wednesday morning recommended Plaas spend six months in jail; the standard sentencing range for the offense is three to eight months.

Plaas told Lewis County Superior Court Judge James Lawler he was sorry for the way he went about it.

Lawler called it an egregious act and chose eight months in jail with a year on community custody after he is released.
•••

Read background on the case here

This news story was updated at 8:59 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – After several false starts, lawyers finalized a plea agreement today with one of the two men accused in last summer’s triple homicide near Salkum.

Ryan J. McCarthy

Ryan J. McCarthy expects to be sentenced to about 14 years in prison and told a judge in a written statement today he did not commit any of the crimes he was originally charged with, including three murders.

He did however plead guilty to three other offenses to take advantage of a plea agreement.

The 30-year-old from Redmond also stated he will not testify: “He’s not going back to prison having testified against (John) Booth or anybody,” his lawyer clarified after the court hearing.

McCarthy was in Lewis County Superior Court this afternoon as  Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher recited a summary of the testimony and evidence that jurors would have heard if he went to trial.

Meagher’s statements made clear he views McCarthy as an accomplice and not the shooter.

McCarthy and former Onalaska resident Booth Jr. were both charged after last year’s Aug. 21 shootings of David West Sr. 52, his son David West Jr., 16, and a friend Tony E. Williams, 50, of Randle. Denise Salts, then 51, who was also at the house off Gore Road, survived a gunshot wound to her face.

Both men are accused of attempted extortion.

The shootings have been described by law enforcement as related to a drug debt collection, but Meagher today suggested a slightly different description.

“We have evidence these guys were ‘taxing’ folks,” Meagher said.

Meager told the judge the evidence would show Booth and McCarthy went to West Sr.’s house to collect money for drug debts or a “perceived” debt owed to Robert “Robbie” S. Russell.

“For example, if somebody caused Robbie to have to post bail, that might be considered a debt in the drug world,” Meagher said outside the courtroom.

Russell, 47, was named early on as a person of interest in the case, but never charged.

Russell was arrested numerous times in the year before the Salkum slayings, each time posting higher and higher bail.

The earliest case was from June 2009 when Russell and West Sr. were accused of ambushing several teenagers camping outside Winlock. West Sr. was a witness in the pending case against Russell.

Russell was sent to prison last December for six years.

Meagher today told Judge Richard Brosey that if McCarthy went to trial, a witness would testify that Russell, Booth and McCarthy showed up at West Sr.’s home a week or two before he was shot.

Jessica Porter, West Sr.’s step-daughter, would have testified West Sr. said he was being blackmailed and had to give them $1,000 to go away, Meagher said.

Another witness would have testified McCarthy and Booth told her they were “taxing” people, Meagher said.

John Lindberg would have testified West Sr. asked him for money when McCarthy and Booth showed up on Aug. 21 because “people wanted money”, Meagher said.

Lindberg would say West Sr. grabbed a shotgun to get them to leave, at which point West Sr. was shot, Meagher said.

“And then Mr. Booth went around and shot David West Jr., Denise Salts and Tony E. Williams,” Meagher told the judge.

A gun of the same type of firearm used was recovered in Spokane after a jail-house phone call made by Booth; whose DNA was found on it, Meagher said.

“In summary, three people were shot and killed, one person was shot in the face and survived and Mr. McCarthy was there,” Meagher said.

McCarthy’s attorney, Rick Cordes of Olympia, said his client passed a polygraph test.

McCarthy today pleaded guilty pursuant to a doctrine referred to as “In re Barr”, in which he pleaded guilty to crimes he did not commit to escape the consequences of more serious charges.

McCarthy pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and attempted extortion.

His pleas came also under the Alford or Newton doctrines, meaning he didn’t admit guilt but agreed if a jury heard and believed the state’s evidence, he would likely be found guilty.

The state plans to recommend he be sentenced to 168 months on the most serious charge, robbery, and less time on the the other counts with time to be served concurrently. The top of the standard sentencing range for robbery is 171 months.

McCarthy’s attorney Cordes afterward said he wouldn’t describe his client as happy about the outcome.

“It’s pretty hard to agree to give up 14 years,” Cordes said. “But the risk (of trial) is high.”

McCarthy’s sentencing is set for Sept. 28. Booth’s trial is scheduled for November.

•••

See the most recent story on the case, “Salkum triple homicide: Deal, no deal” from Sunday Aug. 14, 2011

John Baker speaks outside his home on Johnson Road about the future of his cemetery.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CENTRALIA – The temporary management of a 10-acre cemetery in Centralia by a longtime friend of its owner ends now, after a court commissioner this week declined to grant an order to permanently ban owner John Baker from the premises.

Jennifer Duncan, an Adna-area resident, agreed to operate Greenwood Cemetery while Baker went to prison last year and while he was incarcerated, the state Funeral and Cemetery Board assisted Duncan with putting the operator’s license in her name.

Baker had granted Duncan a power of attorney to handle his affairs.

Baker, 68, was released in October and returned to his home adjacent to the cemetery.

Since then, relations between the two have deteriorated into allegations that he threatened to kill her and that she illegally sold off part of his land.

Duncan told Lewis County Superior Court Commissioner Tracy Mitchell during a hearing on Tuesday if the temporary order keeping Baker away from her and the cemetery wasn’t extended, she would walk away from care-taking of the cemetery.

The dead won’t get buried, Duncan said. “The community will suffer a disservice if that happens,” she said.

While Baker owns the more than a century-old graveyard, he’s no longer licensed to sell plots and make burials; Duncan is.

New burials are few and far between, with about 10 made last year, according to Duncan.

The cemetery, which sits off Johnson Road, has an estimated 10,000 inhabitants.

What the future holds for Greenwood Cemetery is anybody’s guess.

Even a spokesperson for the licensing arm of the cemetery board won’t speculate.

“(W)e can’t answer the question about what happens to the cemetery,” spokesperson Christine Anthony wrote in response to inquires after the court decision. “Baker owns the land and a licensed corporation must run the cemetery. That’s all we know at this point.”

The arrangement between Baker and Duncan began amicably, according to both.

Baker was jailed after an incident in which police were told he held a propane torch to an employee’s sweatshirt, blasted the garment with a shotgun and then pointed the firearm at the woman and two others individuals. Centralia police found methamphetamine in a tackle box in Baker’s closet.

Baker said he made a so-called Alford plea, and was sentenced to a year in prison.

Duncan, a career Army officer who said she’s known Baker for years, stepped up to help.

“We’ve been friends for 20 years,” Duncan said. “Just because he’s a crazy dude, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a place in my heart.”

However, the 57-year-old said when she took on the responsibility of Greenwood Cemetery, she had no idea of what she was getting into.

Duncan said she found that Baker’s non-profit cemetery corporation wasn’t kept up to date and that his cemetery license had expired.

She needed $10,000 for Baker’s bail bondsman, and another $6,000 to $7,000 to pay his property taxes and other bills, and to make repairs to his cemetery lawn mower, she said.

She sold four acres of Baker’s vacant land to a local cemetery operator, Don Burbee, who agreed to help her, she said.

Duncan was guided through the process of reestablishing business’s affairs by the licensing office at the state. Even though she had the power of attorney for Baker, she said they told her she had to put it all in her name.

It’s not what she wanted, she said, but she has been a cemetery operator for almost two years now.

Baker, on the other hand, says he fully expected to take back his responsibilities as a cemetery owner and operator after returning home, but that Duncan ignored his revocation of the power of attorney.

Court documents and testimony in the courtroom on Tuesday, describe antagonism between the two that in June, resulted in a temporary protection order, keeping Baker at least 500 feet from Duncan, and from the cemetery.

Duncan wrote that Baker tried to poison her with orange juice, nearly took her head off with a scythe and sent her almost 450 text messages.

She asked the court to allow her new cemetery corporation sole use of a second house on the property (on Van Wormer Street) and make him hand over cemetery records.

“He chases cemetery patrons out with a shovel, screaming the most vile things at them, mostly four-letter words,” she wrote.

“Every time I loan him a piece of equipment, it breaks,” she wrote.

Four times times since July 1, Baker was arrested for violating the temporary protection order, for coming onto the cemetery grounds sometimes when Duncan was present and sometimes when she was not.

Baker disputes much of what his friend alleges, in particular that he tried to harm her with a scythe.

“I’d never hurt Jennifer,” Baker said. “You know if I were diabolical, I wouldn’t do it on a Sunday afternoon right in public.”

The alleged physical threats however weren’t even a topic of discussion when Commissioner Mitchell ruled on whether to extend the protection order.

Mitchell told the two on Tuesday she couldn’t find a legal basis to prevent Baker from going onto the cemetery property, which he owns.

Mitchell asked Duncan if she needed an anti-harassment order keeping Baker away from her personally, and Duncan said she didn’t if she isn’t operating the cemetery.

The commissioner extended the current order for 30 days, the time Duncan said she needs to wrap up obligations she’s made to cemetery clients.

“Really, it’s a relief for me, because I have my own work,” Duncan said when it was over.

She has a husband, children, a farm, and does contract work for the Department of Defense, she said.

Baker meanwhile says he’s had some “nibbles” regarding selling the cemetery. Also, he says there are other people who could be licensed to be the operator for him.

And he’s ready for a battle to get back the four acres he said are worth millions if used for cemetery plots.

Duncan says the writing is on the wall about how much longer Baker can run the cemetery.

During her time in charge, she had some patrons give her back the deeds to their grave sites and ask for their money back, she said.

A handful of caskets have been removed and buried elsewhere by families unhappy with Baker, she said.

Baker calls those personality conflicts, with patrons who don’t like his “flamboyant” style or his political views.

Whether the Funeral and Cemetery Board will issue him a license again is unknown.

Baker has owned and operated Greenwood since 1977, according to the board spokesperson.

His license expired in January of last year while he was locked up and a license was granted to Duncan the following June, according to spokesperson Anthony.

The license can’t simply be transferred back, according to Anthony, a new one would have to be applied for, with eligibility determined at that time.

Duncan contends in her court documents that the Funeral and Cemetery Board has investigated discrepancies of as much as $75,000 in Baker’s cemetery trust funds.

Anthony confirmed “an investigation” was conducted and is being reviewed by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Baker says he’s talked with the regulators about those issues and acknowledges a “lack of current bookkeeping”.

Would they give Baker back his license if he applied, the spokesperson was asked.

“I really can’t speculate on that,” Anthony wrote.