Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A blind man walking to the grocery store to buy milk dropped into a brick-lined pit of an uncovered storm drain in Chehalis last night.

Police and aid called about 11:30 p.m. to the corner of Southwest 11th Street at Market Boulevard found 42-year-old Tim Franklin just pulling himself out.

He said he was stuck down there about five minutes.

“I stepped into it, went forward and smacked my head on the other side,” Franklin said.

It was only chest-deep, but one of his feet got wedged in a small pipe about halfway down, he said.

“There I was, I was yelling,” Franklin said. “Not for help, I was cussin’.”

Franklin, who uses a white cane to make his way around town, was more annoyed than he was hurt. Today however, the brim of his hat hid a purplish-red scuff mark on his forehead.

“You know, I never go on this side of the sidewalk, he said.

A woman across 11th Street who heard him and called 911 told him it’s been uncovered for about three days, he said.

“Why would they leave it this way,” he said. “I’m pissed.”

The opening – on the shoulder next to the sidewalk – is about three feet long by two feet wide. A shallow stream of water trickled across the bottom of it this afternoon.

A piece of plywood and orange cones set atop it now.

The cover that belongs over it is more like a grate, according to Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Kevin Curfman. He said he was told by the street department it keeps getting stolen.

“(They’re) gonna have to figure out how to bolt it down or something,” Curfman said.

Franklin declined to go to the hospital, a paramedic checked his neck, he said.

The Chehalis man says he’s not immune to accidents because of his lack of sight. A hereditary condition gradually took his vision until it was entirely gone at age 30, he said.

Four or five years ago he fell at Stan Hedwall Park and broke his ankle, he said.

The ankle is sore, he said today. He planned to have his doctor check it, his hip and his head, he said.

Last night, after the nice paramedic was done with him, he nixed the trip to Safeway and limped the 13 blocks back home, he said.

“They didn’t offer me a ride home,” he said.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Murder defendant Joshua Leroy Vance was acutely psychotic and responding to “command hallucinations” to kill his father early in the morning on March 7 in their Onalaska home, according to a mental evaluation conducted by a psychologist.

Defense attorney David Arcuri submitted Dr. Brett Trowbridge’s professional opinion when he filed a motion asking for an acquittal of his client based on insanity. Vance pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in early May.

Yesterday, in Lewis County Superior Court, the prosecutor’s office said now they would like their experts to examine Vance as well.

Vance, 25, is charged with first-degree murder after allegedly using a knife to attack his sleeping father, 58-year-old Terry Vance on March 7.

The younger Vance is also charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder, as he allegedly told a deputy he was going to kill his grandmother, nephew and uncle but couldn’t because he cut his hand.

He remains held in the Lewis County Jail on $1 million bail.

The Centralia College student has already been evaluated by specialists from Western State Hospital who determined he was mentally competent to stand trial, but now they will evaluate him for insanity, according to an order signed by a judge yesterday.

Vance appeared in court for the brief hearing.

According to Arcuri, the guidelines for criminal insanity look at if a person suffers from a mental disease or defect such that they could not comprehend the nature or quality of their act, and, even if they could understand, could not conform their behavior.

Trowbridge wrote in his report, which Arcuri received on June 1, an insanity defense would be appropriate because at the time of the alleged incident, with Vance’s acute mental illness he was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of his conduct.

According to the report from Western State’s previous contact with Vance, he has been hospitalized in the past for command hallucinations to kill himself and harm others. He also has been treated for substance induced hallucinations, according to the report.

His diagnosis’s in the state doctors’ report included psychotic disorder, major depression, amphetamine dependence and alcohol abuse.

Vance told the evaluator he started using methamphetamine at age 11, but had not used it for the previous two years.

Vance’s family say he was being treated for mental health issues at Cascade Mental Health in Chehalis and had gone off his medication because he couldn’t afford it.

If state doctors decide to bring him to their facility to conduct the exam, they can commit him for not more than 15 days and then as soon as is practicable furnish the court with a report on their findings, according to the court order.

Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said the two sides set a date of Aug. 2 to check in with the judge about the status of the upcoming evaluation.

A trial is scheduled for the week of Oct. 22.
•••

For background, read:

• “Onalaska man pleads insanity in father’s fatal stabbing” from Tuesday May 8, 2012, here

•  “Murder suspect: “When he was good, he was such a good young man”” from Friday March 9, 2012, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A staff psychologist at Western State Hospital has concluded James M. Reeder is competent to participate in the court proceedings in his Lewis County homicide case, involving the alleged torture and rape of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter.

Reeder, 25, was sent to the state mental hospital June 21 after his lawyer requested the evaluation a week earlier.

The report, filed yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court, notes the Centralia man has mild depression and anxiety, attributed to the legal situation he is facing.

“Any of his previous symptoms that may have interfered with his ability to understand court proceedings or assist in his defense appear to have abated,” Dr. Ray Hendrickson wrote in the report.

Reeder has not yet been arraigned, presumably that is the next step in his case. A notation in his court file says he will appear before a judge on Thursday morning.

He is charged with homicide by abuse and related charges, including possession of methamphetamine, following the May 24 death in Centralia of Koralynn Fister.

If convicted, he faces a possible maximum penalty of life in prison.

The coroner has said the child died from drowning and blunt trauma to her head. Reeder said he found the toddler face down in the bathtub when he stepped out to grab a towel.

Prosecutors allege at least two incidents of sexual abuse of the little girl during the roughly two month period Reeder lived with his girlfriend Becky Heupel and her two daughters, ages 2 and 4.

Defense attorney David Arcuri did not state in court the reason for requesting the competency review, but according to the report, Reeder said he attempted suicide in the jail, trying to drown himself in the sink.

The report, dated June 29, said Reeder was kept in a ward that allowed 24-hour observation and treatment while he was at Western State.

While there, he was put on medication for depression and anxiety, as well as temporarily for insomnia. He said he hardly slept while at the jail, the psychologist wrote.

During the formal interview, he was cooperative and open, the psychologist wrote. He said he was “sad, depressed, anxious … grieving, mourning … I miss that little girl … don’t know how to explain what happened.”

Reeder also – when asked – said he’s always been paranoid, not liking to go to bars or Wal-Mart, for example, because people talk about him and look at him.

The psychologist indicated he felt that was more like a personality trait or a symptom of anxiety.

The report included a diagnosis of adjustment disorder, but did not elaborate on what that meant.

Reeder was taken away by police from the couple’s West Oakview Street area home the day Koralynn died, and arrested that night. He is being held on $5 million bail.

Reeder had been unemployed for about a year, but previously worked as a flooring installer, according to the report.

One portion of it offers basic self-reported biographical information: such as he is currently separated from his wife who has a 5-year-old son, and that he has a 2-year-old daughter he fathered with a girlfriend.

His attorney has described him as a lifetime Lewis County resident, who attended W.F. West High School through the 11th grade.

He has no felony criminal history, but in February 2011 was convicted of a gross misdemeanor, fourth-degree assault and in January 2007 was convicted of misdemeanor possession of marijuana, according to the Western State Hospital report.

He suffered a concussion in a motor vehicle accident as an eighth grader, according to the report.

He told the psychologist he has used, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Although Reeder denied current thoughts of suicide or wanting to harm himself, the psychologist recommended he see a mental health provider.

CORRECTION: This news story has been updated and corrected to reflect a trial date has not yet been scheduled for Reeder.
•••

For background, read “Breaking news: Mother’s boyfriend held for investigation of rape, murder of Centralia child” from Friday May 25, 2012 at 5 p.m., here

Updated at 8:19 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Although deputies have arrested a former Lewis County man for kidnap, robbery and murder in the 1985 deaths of Ed and Wilhelmina Maurin, the sheriff is calling upon more people who might know something to come forward.

News of yesterday’s arrest at the suspect’s home outside King Salmon, Alaska took most of the elderly couple’s surviving family members by surprise this morning; when Sheriff Steve Mansfield announced to the news media his office has solved the case that’s more than 26 years old.

Rick Riffe, 53, and his brother John Gregory Riffe, 50,  have long been primary suspects in the cold case, according to the sheriff.

John Riffe died last month of ill health, just after the sheriff’s office prepared their probable cause statement, Mansfield said.

Authorities say potential witnesses were threatened by the brothers, even with death, if they spoke up.

“We’re very confident now one is dead and the other in custody, (other) witnesses will come forward,” Mansfield said this afternoon. “We would like to hear from them.”

At a press conference this afternoon in Chehalis, Mansfield and Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer indicated it’s not like there was suddenly a “smoking gun” that led to the arrest.

Mansfield called it a long, tedious, frustrating case that the sheriff’s office felt was strong back in the early 1990s, but wasn’t able to persuade the prosector to move forward on.

Meyer said he filed the charges on Friday and got a $5 million arrest warrant.

Meyer likened it to a puzzle.

“You look at all the witness statements, go through the timeline and realize we have all the pieces we need,” Meyer said.

Sheriff’s detective Bruce Kimsey has worked the better part of seven years on the case and it’s been his sole assignment the past four months, according to Meyer.

The affidavit of probable cause offers information pointing to the brothers from several individuals; none of the witnesses are named in the document.

Rick Riffe is still in Alaska, and is being  processed for extradition back to Lewis County to stand trial.

The Maurins, Ed, 81 and “Minnie” 83, vanished from their Ethel home Dec. 19, 1985. Their car was found abandoned the next day in the parking lot at Yard Birds and their bodies discovered Dec. 24, 1985 off a logging road near Adna.

The sheriff’s office says it believes the brothers forced the couple to drive to their bank, Sterling Savings and Loan in Chehalis, and withdraw $8,500 before cutting them down with a shotgun inside their car.

Family members of the Maurins sat in on the press conference.

Minnie Maurin’s son, former Lewis County Commissioner Dennis Hadaller, briefly spoke to those assembled. The 84-year-old’s voice broke as he did.

Hadaller thanked prosecutors, the sheriff’s office, and especially detective Kimsey whom he said has become a close friend.

“Also, I want to thank all the private citizens that came forward under threat of death and gave us information,” Hadaller said.

He made a plea for anyone with additional information to bring it the sheriff or prosecutor.

Prosecutor Meyer suggested the brothers selected their target more or less at random, because a friend of theirs mentioned the Maurins probably had a lot of money.

The friend, interviewed in 1991, said he used drugs with the Riffes and remembered seeing the couple outside when he and the brothers drove past the house about two weeks before the deaths, according to the affidavit of probable cause. He recalled mentioning they must have money, because they owned all the Christmas trees surrounding their property and their son had a successful logging business, the document states.

The same man, a truck driver, told investigators he gave a shotgun to Rick Riffe which he asked him to cut down so he could carry it on the job, according to the document. He said he had trouble getting it back, until two or three months after the murders, the document alleges. The gun was later tossed in Mayfield Lake, according to one witness.

The unnamed truck driver spoke of Rick Riffe having no money and then suddenly buying a commercial-type fishing boat, as well as getting an odd call from Rick Riffe’s wife Robin Riffe, who said, “You wouldn’t believe what Rick’s done,” the document states.

Another individual, in 2004, told investigators he was driving from home in Mossyrock with his mother into town that December when he saw John Riffe in a car with the Maurin couple, but that John Riffe confronted him near the Mossyrock Theater and threatened to kill both him and his mother if he spoke about what he saw, according to the documents.

The man reportedly came forward after his mother passed away.

This past February, he told detective Kimsey both brothers were in the 1960s green four-door car about a quarter mile from the Maurin’s house, the documents state.

One source, a drug dealer interviewed inside a federal prison in Oregon, recalled selling two ounces of cocaine for $2,200 to Robin Riffe back in December 1985, and getting paid in $100 bills by a man he was able to identify as John Riffe, the documents alleges.

Numerous other people are cited as having told detectives of seeing a man or men who matched the brothers’ descriptions at various places that day, often noting one wearing a dark stocking cap and carrying a gun.

One Mossyrock woman who said she’d never seen the brothers before but heard rumors they were involved, offered sightings in three key locations.

She said when she was driving by the Maurin’s house one morning she saw a white van parked there and a man wearing an Army jacket near the mailbox; the following day she saw Ed Maurin sitting in an old car as she left Security State Bank; and then saw the same van parked on the shoulder of Kresky Avenue near Yard Birds and two men getting into it, according to the document.

Two sheriff’s detectives, a private investigator and Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead flew to Alaska to make the arrest; they were joined by Alaska state troopers, according to Mansfield.

Meyer said Rick Riffe is charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree robbery, as well as one count of burglary.

Because of the suspect’s poor health, he is not planning to pursue the death penalty, Meyer said.

The prosecutor said he expects whenever Rick Riffe arrives in Lewis County, he will be taken in front of a judge the next day.

After his arraignment, he will go to trial within 60 days Meyer said.

•••

For background read “Breaking news: Sheriff: Cold case solved in 1985 shooting death of elderly Ethel couple” from earlier today, here

Updated at 11:05 a.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – An arrest has been made in what has been described as one of the most horrific homicides in Lewis County, an elderly couple believed abducted from their Ethel home, shot to death and dumped in a wooded area near Adna more than a quarter century ago.

The bodies of Edward and Wilhelmina “Minnie” Maurin were found on Christmas Eve 1985.

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office yesterday arrested 53-year-old Rick Riffe in Alaska, according to the sheriff’s office.

The former Lewis County resident and his brother have long been primary suspects in the cold case.

Additional evidence and witnesses finally talking is what helped solve the case, according to Sheriff Steve Mansfield.

“Detectives feel many witnesses did not come forward during the time of the initial investigation due to being fearful of the Riffe brothers and possible retaliation for speaking out,” Mansfield said in a news release.

The two men moved to Alaska in 1987 and John Riffe died a week before detectives purchased tickets to travel there and arrest them, according to the sheriff.

Rick Riffe, who resides in King Salmon, Alaska, was arrested yesterday and will be processed for extradition back to Lewis County to stand trial, Mansfield stated.

Mansfield said his office has developed information the brothers kidnapped the couple from their home, drove them to their bank in Chehalis and forced them to withdraw $8,500 before killing them.

They were reported missing Dec. 19, 1985 after guests arrived for a Christmas party at their house along U.S. Highway 12, and nobody was home. The following day, their car was found abandoned in the Yard Birds parking lot in Chehalis.

The keys were in the ignition and blood stains were found in the car, according to the sheriff’s office. On Christmas Eve day, their bodies were found at the end of Stearns Hill Road.

Former Lewis County Commissioner Dennis Hadaller said he has waited 26 years and seven months for this day.

Hadaller offered rewards and hired private detectives to find who killed his mother and her husband.

“I really appreciate all the help, the sheriff’s department and the people that came forward with new evidence,” Hadaller said this morning.

The Mayfield Lake area resident who is now 84, said he’s “tickled” but the news is sad too, bringing back memories. It didn’t take him by surprise however, he said.

“I’ve been involved all along, we had to keep everything pretty quiet, what was happening,” he said. “I couldn’t even tell my own children or close friends.”

He couldn’t tell even his younger sister Hazel Oberg, he said.

The Toledo woman and her husband were having breakfast when they got the news this morning.

“Well it was a shock for me to hear it on the radio, an awful shock,” Oberg said. “But I’m calming now. It makes me relive it.”

Oberg, 82,  called it a relief.

“In a way, we’re just thrilled,” she said. “I guess you could call it thrilled. I’m in tears.”

A press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. today with the sheriff, Hadaller and Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer who will share details of the investigation.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The attorney for a school bus driver who was arrested last autumn for groping teenage girls after their volleyball game in Onalaska told a judge the behavior was completely out of the ordinary, and related to a manic state caused by his bi-polar disorder.

Kenneth W. Sands, 52, was in Lewis County Superior Court yesterday following a plea agreement in which he would be sentenced for five counts of fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation.

Sands drove a bus for the Rainier School District and was off-duty but had gone to the game in Onalaska last October to support the Rainier team.

He was arrested after he reportedly grabbed a 15-year-old volleyball player’s buttocks as she waited to board the bus, slapped a 16-year-old on the buttocks and then got on the bus and touched the breasts of a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. An adult female said he fondled her during the game.

Olympia lawyer Paul A. Strophy said Sands had just switched medications at the time and was adjusting to the change, plus had used caffeine to counteract the effects of a long bus trip the day before to Forks. Sands pleaded guilty in May.

The two lawyers agreed on the recommended sentence, but Strophy appealed to Judge James Lawler to allow his client to serve his time under house arrest, saying as as former corrections officer, he was extremely anxious about being incarcerated. He also requested time to get his medications set up before the sentence began.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes, one of the teenage victims and her mother opposed the so-called electronic home monitoring.

In a letter from the girl read aloud in court, the girl said now has trust issues with older males and has nightmares about Sands coming to attack her family.

“I feel uncomfortable if Ken’s on house arrest,” she wrote. “I’d feel better if he was in jail.”

Sands spoke to the judge, saying he regretted the events and the circumstances that led up to them.

Judge Lawler imposed 30 days in jail for each of the misdemeanors, suspending most of the rest of the sentence so Sands would for the next 10 years have the remainder of the time hanging over his head if he failed to abide by several conditions.

Four and a half years of the sentence are suspended.

He ordered Sands to be taken to jail immediately following the hearing.

“The fact that he has bi-polar disorder is not a defense,” Lawler said. “It’s something he knows about and deals with or does not deal with at his peril.”

Sands has been terminated from his bus driving position, according to Strophy.

Because of the conviction, he will have to submit his DNA to authorities but will not be required to register as a sex offender following his release.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Three years ago, a student at White Pass High School took 30 Ibuprofen pills one morning and then went to school.

When his school counselor found out about it, the boy was taken away in an ambulance to Morton General Hospital where he was treated and subsequently released.

Days later, a buddy of his who was also a student at the school attempted suicide, and succeeded.

The 16-year-old, Brian Stephens, had less than a week earlier passed a note to a girl in English class writing that if his friend killed himself, he would too. The girl told two school counselors.

His grandmother, with whom he lived, never heard about the note until months afterward. She wasn’t called when high school counselor Justin Neilson brought her grandson into his office to ask him if he was suicidal.

Stephens’ family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school district, saying a grave lack of professional judgement led the school counselor to dismiss clear signs Stephens was at risk for suicide, that the district did not provide its employees with mechanisms to respond to such situations and that it failed to have a comprehensive school suicide prevention plan.

“Our position is the school district did not address the risks they should have done with Brian,” the family attorney Kevin Coluccio said.

Teen suicide is a huge issue across the country, and it’s an issue that schools need to deal with, Coluccio said.

It’s is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24, according to the attorney.

The family, through its attorney, claims the school had a duty to notify his parents the teen was talking about suicide at school.

A key part of student safety is proper parent notification practices, the lawyers write in their filing. If a student says they’re not feeling well, parents are called; if they are behind on their vaccinations or not showing up for classes, parents are contacted, the lawyers write.

The school district’s attorney says it does not have such a duty.

Its responsibility is only to protect students in its custody from reasonably anticipated dangers, according to the lawyer, Jerry J. Moberg.

The school district is represented by Moberg as well as James E. Baker at Jerry J. Moberg and Associates in Euphrata. Also representing them is Tukwila attorney Philip Talmadge.

All that remain of the school officials who were involved in 2009 are three of the five school board members. The school district superintendent Rich Linehan, the high school principal and the two school counselors have since left the district.

White Pass Junior-Senior High School, with about 180 students, is in Randle.

Today, Stephens’ grandmother Debbie Reisert still gets sick talking about it, a loss she says has left a gaping hole in their small family.

“I’m really angry about it,” Reisert said. “But I really haven’t talked about it openly in the town.”

Reisert runs a lodging business on Cannon Road in Packwood. She worries about the impact news of the lawsuit and its details could have on the kids involved, she said; the then-16-year-old friend of her grandson who attempted suicide, the girl who told the school counselor about the note.

Both the current White Pass School District superintendent and the school board president declined to comment, referring questions to their attorneys. The lawyers representing the school district have not returned calls for comment.

A claim filed in January asking $3.5 million was denied. The lawsuit was filed at the end of March in Lewis County Superior Court.

“The thing that’s so frustrating for us is he made an assessment that’s so obviously wrong and didn’t give us a chance to intervene,” Reisert said.

She feels like her only grandson would still be alive, if the school had simply picked up the phone and called, she said.

“Brian was an amazing human being,” Reisert said. “He was really, really intelligent. He was very articulate.”

The oldest of three children, he tended toward the Buddhist philosophy, was funny and was the kind of kid that always helped out the underdog, she said.

His mother took him out of Gig Harbor High School his sophomore year and sent him to live with her in Packwood after he got in trouble with some teens who threw something off a freeway overpass at a vehicle, according to Reisert.

Reisert said she spent about 30 minutes with the school counselor when she enrolled her grandson, explaining about his pending court case, and her concerns about the differences in schools.

She asked him to let her know if he was “hanging out with trouble,” she said, to call if he noticed anything amiss.

It was only about six weeks later he was dead.

Court documents and reports from the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office offer details of the week in May 2009 that ended in the death of the White Pass High School sophomore.

It was Thursday May 21, 2009 when Stephens was found with a gunshot wound to his head, inside a Tacoma man’s vacation mobile home on Richer Drive in Packwood, three days after he went missing from his grandmother’s home nearby.

The sheriff’s office investigation gives the following account of what transpired during the previous seven days:

One of Stephens’ female classmates was among the many students interviewed by detective Bruce Kimsey.

She told Kimsey of the note Stephens had written her, saying he never explained why he wrote it.

A 16-year-old Packwood boy Stephens had known since preschool said he and Stephens recently had conversation about how they would kill themselves if they were ever to do so. They were walking around Hinkle Tinkle Falls behind the boy’s house.

On Friday May 15, 2009, that boy took 30 Ibuprofen pills and then went to school.

After he was sent to the hospital, the girl went to the school counselor with the information about Stephens’ note. Several of the students were talked to at school that day about the suicide attempt.

The counselor Neilson told a deputy he then questioned Stephens about committing suicide.

“(Stephens) had replied he was not going to harm himself and did not feel like harming himself in any way,” the deputy wrote.

Over the weekend, her grandson was upset about his friend’s suicide attempt, and some of the other kids seemed to blame him for some reason, according to his Reisert.

Stephens had talked about running away back to Gig Harbor, according to some of the students.

On Monday May 18, 2009: Stephens grades came in the mail, they weren’t good.

“The thing that’s really difficult for me is I got angry at him that day,” Reisert said. “He got bad grades, he wasn’t turning in his homework. I yelled at him and he took off.”

According to Sandra Zacher, a grade school teacher in the district, Stephens had come looking for her son who wasn’t home that afternoon. She said he hung his head down and walked away.

A runaway report was filed that night, a deputy went to the childhood friend’s house on Richer Drive, where he learned the two boys had recently discussed suicide, and listened to a voice message Stephens had left on his friend’s phone, saying he was going to “do it.”

About 4 o’clock the following morning, Zacher’s doorbell rang, and she went to the front door and saw no one was there.

Reisert and Stephens’ mother, Allison Tinney, continued to look for the teenager.

On Thursday May 21, 2009: They went to the friend’s home, and learned from his mother, Zacher, she had noticed the lights on the previous few days at a nearby vacation mobile home.

The three walked over there, Tinney saw her son’s backpack through a window, went inside and found her son dead on a bed with a .22 Winchester long rifle.

The school district superintendent and high school counselor Neilson were among those who arrived at the mobile home as deputies investigated.

A suicide note was found on the back of a piece of homework in Stephens’ backpack. It contents were blacked out in the copy of the report released by the sheriff’s office.

Court documents show his date of death as Tuesday May 19, 2009.

The suicide seemingly came out of nowhere, according to his grandmother.

“He wasn’t even moody ever,” Reisert said. “Brian was just really even all the time, always smiling.

Reisert said she thinks it was a like a fleeting idea he acted on more or less spontaneously.

The lawsuit names as the plaintiffs Stephens’ mother, as well as William Boehm, personal representative of the estate of Brian Stephens.

It is being handled by Coluccio at the Seattle firm of Strittmatter, Kessler, Whelan and Coluccio as well as the Law Office of Skip Simpson in Texas.

Paige Tangney, a past president of the Washington State Association of School Psychologists who has worked in public schools for more 30 years, was asked by the family’s lawyers to evaluate the circumstances of Stephen’s death.

At a minimum, the counselor should have kept Stephens in his office after they spoke about the note he wrote and then picked up the phone to call his grandmother, according to Tangney.

Tangney writes in her filed declaration that a reasonable standard of care is to take any threat of self harm by a student seriously. She describes the protocols many schools have adopted for dealing with potentially suicidal students.

If a student is determined to be a low risk, the parent can advise about the next steps, and is asked to be home when the student gets home from school, Tangney writes. If medium or high risk, the parent is asked to come to school and pick them up.

Tangney writes it appeared Neilson conducted an informal assessment and concluded the teen was either at low risk or not at risk.

Any one of several items the counselor learned, coupled with the note that threatened suicide, made him a significant risk however, she wrote.

“To make a judgement that a student is not a significant suicide risk when they have stated to another student they are going to commit suicide if another student does, the other student has made an attempt, and he has additional risk factors, constitutes, in my opinion, a grave lack of professional judgement as a school counselor,” Tangney writes.

The school district’s attorney, in an answer filed in early May, denies the warning signs were clear or that the counselor failed to properly assess Stephens.

Also, state employees are immune from liability pursuant to a professional judgement doctrine, the district’s lawyer wrote.

“If there was an error in judgement on the part of a professional employee of the school district, it was an honest error in judgment arrived at within the standard of care the school district employee was obliged to follow,” the attorney wrote.

There is currently no date scheduled for when the parties might meet in court.