Lewis County Sirens.com

Susie, a 10-year-old male cat is captured by 12-year-old Daylynn Pannette's camera phone before Monday.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Centralia City Council member and pastor of a downtown church Bill Bates says he’s guilty of “making wrong use of judgement” when he shot and killed a neighbor cat with a pellet gun earlier this week.

Bates, 60, said he was surprised the animal died as when he used the air-powered rifle on a possum in his yard, he had to shoot it three times to kill it.

He didn’t mean for the cat to die, Bates said, he was just tired of it dropping “deposits”, messing in his beauty bark and walking on his clean cars.

Bates said he saw it walk behind the arborvitae shrubs and fired into the arborvitae shrubs. Usually he’s 30 or 40 yards away, he said.

“If I’d have done it on purpose and wanted to kill the stupid thing, I wouldn’t have told anyone,” Bates said yesterday.

Bates came across as frustrated that the news of the incident and criticism of him had, in his words, gone viral on the Internet.

It happened on Monday on the 900 block of Ham Hill Road in Centralia and he confessed right away, Bates said.

“I went to the owners, I apologized, offered retribution,” he said. “I’ll be glad to buy them a cat. I’ll bring ’em an Easter lily if I have to.”

Dusty Pannette and her family are devastated, and shocked, following the knock on their door and the news their 12-pound “Susie” was dead.

“We didn’t even know it was bothering this guy,” Pannette said.

Pannette said the neighborhood is filled with cats and dogs and Susie – who is actually a male – for the past 10 years has been an indoor and outdoor cat, one who often prowled the open pasture behind their houses for mice.

“Everyone in the neighborhood knows this cat, he’s not a stray, he’s not aggressive,” Pannette said. “We all let our animals roam freely, we never thought twice about it.”

Pannette said she was stunned and confused when Bates – who she didn’t really know – announced what he’d done and told her he usually shoots at her cat’s feet but this time he “got” him.

“The words I’m sorry never came out of his mouth,” she said. He just said he felt bad and said he’d buy a new one, she said.

It has been additionally disturbing to her children, who felt an extra bit of security knowing a minister lived on their block, she said.

Centralia police declined to comment, acknowledging they took a report, but would not discuss details since nobody had been arrested.

Officer John Panco said yesterday the case was sent to the city’s attorney to determine if any charges would be filed.

Both Pannette and Bates say police described to them it’s not criminal to shoot a nuisance animal on your own property.

Pannette and her husband have spoken with a lawyer and are considering a lawsuit. She’s shared a flyer with her neighbors to warn them there’s “someone on the hill that doesn’t appreciate animals and will fire on them if they come in his yard.”

If it’s not against the law, it should be, Pannette said.

The black and white feline has been taken to a local veterinarian to be cremated.

Bates is serving his fourth year on the city council and is minister at Destiny Christian Center, an Assemblies of God church, on North Tower Avenue.

Bates said he is sorry, what he did was stupid and he loves animals.

The police officer can attest to how remorseful, apologetic and cooperative he was, Bates said.

He realizes he should have spoken to his neighbors about his concerns or, “I should have thrown a rock at it, not shoot it. I’ll never do that again.”

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Since a coroner’s inquest has concluded former trooper Ronda Reynolds’ 1998 manner of death – homicide, the state Court of Appeals decided the civil case between her mother and former Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson is over and done with.

Ronda Reynolds

An unprecedented judicial review of the death in 2009 found Wilson’s conclusion Reynolds took her own life was arbitrary, capricious and incorrect. Reynolds’ mother, Barb Thompson of Spokane was elated over the decision, but wanted the higher court to clarify what can happen under a judicial review of a coroner’s decision.

In the decision filed yesterday, the three-judge panel said most of the issues are now “moot”.

The judges dismissed Wilson’s appeal and Thompson’s cross-appeal.

Attorneys who continued representing Wilson after he left office had asked for his appeal to be be dismissed.

The decision and the 2009 judicial review both stemmed from a 2006 civil case filed by Thompson.

Appeals court judges Joel Penoyar, David Armstrong and Jill Johnson also agreed in yesterday’s decision Thompson is not entitled to attorney fees as she failed to “preserve the issue.”

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod presided in October over a coroner’s inquest. He officially took office in January 2010 replacing Wilson who had been coroner some three decades.

One of McLeod’s first acts was to announce he would conduct an inquest, then he put it on hold as he learned the appeals court was looking over the issue. Then the appeals court put the appeal on hold as they learned McLeod wanted to hold an inquest.

Ronda Reynolds, 33, died with a bullet in her head in the home she shared with husband of less than a year, Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds. She was found dead on the floor of a small walk-in closet, covered up by a turned-on electric blanket.

An inquest jury ruled unanimously in October the manner of death was homicide and named Ron Reynolds and his son as responsible for the death. Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer declined to bring criminal charges.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Evidence from the triple murder in Salkum has turned up in the Lewis County Coroner’s Office, apparently never getting into the hands of law enforcement or attorneys in the case.

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said finger nail clippings and hair trimmings from all three victims were found in a sealed bag in the work locker of a former deputy coroner.

John Allen Booth Jr.

He said today he thought it turned up about a month ago.

John A. Booth Jr., 32, was tried, convicted and sent to prison for life in December for the fatal shootings of David West Sr., 52,  David “D.J.” West Jr., 16, and 50-year-old Tony Williams of Randle.

The three, along with Denise Salts who survived, were found in the home Salts and the Wests shared on Wings Way in the Onalaska-Salkum area on August 21, 2010.

Defense attorney Roger Hunko – who represented Booth – said today he didn’t know anything about it but said he was dumbfounded.

“It sounds interesting,” Hunko said.

Both Hunko and elected Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer say it is a potential appeal issue for Booth.

Normally defense attorneys get to look at all of the prosecution’s evidence in a case.

“Can they try to make an issue? They can try,” Meyer said this afternoon.

Meyer said however, in this case he doesn’t see it as a problem, as the items were mentioned in reports.

Meyer said he plans to disclose the fact to both Hunko and Booth’s appeal attorney they now have this evidence and “see what the defense wants to do about it.”

The evidence was collected at the coroner’s office during the autopsies, according to McLeod.

He said he didn’t know why it wasn’t taken away by the sheriff’s office representative he presumed was in attendance or why it ended up in an employee locker.

McLeod said he called Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher after the discovery.

It’s not clear if anyone knew the evidence was missing.

McLeod was elected the November after the homicides and took office officially in January 2011.

“What we have in place now, if law enforcement is not present we’ll notify them to come over and collect that (kind of evidence),” McLeod said.

There’s no “chain of custody” documentation with it, according to McLeod.

McLeod said his staff had cut the locks from previous employee’s lockers to get inside them and that’s when it was found.

Both Meyer and McLeod said they expect something like this won’t happen again.

“We’ve worked out the issues and I hope we won’t have similar problems in the future,” Meyer said.

Booth’s attorney filed a notice of appeal the day he was convicted.

The former Onalaska resident who was sentenced under the so-called three strikes law said in a jail house interview after his conviction he could “guarantee” he would have a new trial within the next five years.

Matthew P. White speaks with defense attorney Bob Schroeter in court.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Yesterday’s 911 call to a Mossyrock-area home in which a molotov-cocktail type device exploded in a kitchen was about a man threatening to kill himself, according to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office.

Matthew P. White’s divorce became final last week and he went there with a gas can and several incendiary devices, but his adult son and the son’s friend wrestled with him and dragged him out of the house, charging documents state.

His ex-wife and son live in the home, but were not there when he arrived.

White, 51, was in Lewis County Superior Court this afternoon where he was charged with arson and several other offenses.

Judge Nelson Hunt set his bail at $250,00.

White sported what appeared to be two reddish black eyes-in-the-making as he faced the judge. Defense attorney Bob Schroeter told Judge Hunt White had “zero” criminal history.

Charging documents and the sheriff’s office give the following account:

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Tim English was dispatched about 12:25 p.m. to the 100 block of Koons Road about a man threatening to kill himself.

When Deputy English arrived, White was sitting on the ground with four males standing around him.

Twenty-three-year-old Kevin White told the deputy he and his friend Anthony Westmoreland had seen his father’s car on the side of Salmon Creek Road, stopped and reminded him he wasn’t supposed to be in the area or near the house.

The senior White drove off and his son followed.

The son said he watched his father carry a gas can and an incendiary device to the front door then kick in the door and go inside.

The young men followed and once inside, saw White light the device.

Kevin White told the deputy he was roughly eight feet away when his dad threw it at him. Kevin White kicked it away and it exploded causing a fire in the kitchen.

Westmoreland put it out with an extinguisher, and Kevin White wrestled with his father.

Kevin White got a cut on his hand when he grabbed a knife from his father’s pocket.

When the senior White then pulled a two-foot-long knife from the neck of his jacket, Westmoreland punched him, knocking him unconscious.

Kevin White then dragged his father outside.

The fire damage was apparently limited to “possible smoke damage.”

No serious injuries were reported, though the senior White had a cut on his right eye and blood on his head.

Lewis County Fire District 8 was called just after 1 p.m. to conduct a “patient check” at the sheriff’s office request, according to Fire Chief Duran McDaniel.

Deputy English collected three knives from the home that the young men said were taken from White.

English recovered three incendiary devices and four tupperware containers with wicks and gasoline from White’s vehicle.

Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said the devices were “molotov cocktail types”.

A sheriff’s office spokesperson said she was told they were made with styrofoam and gasoline. White told his son it was “Naplam”; he’d researched it on the Internet.

Also in the vehicle was an ice chest with styrofoam that was used in the mixture of the device, according to charging documents.

White hasn’t lived in the home since October. He is described as a Centralia resident.

On his way to jail, White told Deputy English he had been having thoughts of harming himself as well as killing his wife.

White is charged with first-degree assault of his son, first-degree arson,first-degree burglary and unlawful possession of an incendiary device

His arraignment is tomorrow.

Laura Lynn Hickey looks back toward her family as she learns someone will address the judge on her behalf.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A judge gave Laura Lynn Hickey thirty years in prison today, for what her attorney said his client viewed as a mercy killing after her approximately 21-weeks-along fetus was unexpectedly delivered into a toilet.

Hickey, 25, admitted she cut off its head with a kitchen knife.

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt said the case set a new low, but declined to hand down the 80 year sentence the prosecutor asked for.

“In my view, the defendant is only a threat to her own children, and her release will be past her further ability to bear children,” Hunt said.

The Centralia woman had pleaded guilty second-degree murder.

The standard sentencing range for the crime was between about 12 years to 20 years, although because the victim was particularly vulnerable, Hickey could have been locked up for life.

Hickey was about halfway through her pregnancy last March when she gave birth alone in her Centralia trailer home. She told detectives she grabbed the baby from the toilet, saw he was gurgling and trying to take a breath, according to charging documents.

“She indicated to police she couldn’t stand by and watch it suffer, and die,” defense attorney Ken Johnson told the judge this morning.

Johnson noted his client’s state of mind was impaired, and not only from drugs.

Attorneys disagreed if the infant boy was far enough along it could have survived outside the womb.

It weighed .85 pound and was less than 10-inches long, according to the lawyers involved.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said the baby “had taken a breath, at least one breath.” Johnson said Dr. William Brady was of the opinion the baby would not have survived.

More than 30 people sat in the Chehalis courtroom this morning, including Hickey’s mother, step-father and other family.

Her grandmother Nancy Wood asked the judge for some leniency.

“Laura’s never been in trouble,” Wood said. “She was a good mother, a good provider, until drugs came into the factor.”

The father of the child, Matthew Emery recommended she serve 10 years.

His written comments to the judge were read aloud; he sat with red-rimmed eyes next to a jail guard in the courtroom. What he is in custody for wasn’t mentioned.

Emery said said he still loves Hickey, but he doesn’t think he will ever understand what she did.

“I forgive you for what have done, and I don’t say this lightly,” Emery wrote.

Prosecutor Meyer said it was a crime so heinous, Hickey should lose the ability to “walk among us.” He described to the judge a variety of excuses by Hickey, saying she did not want the child.

Defense attorney Johnson asked for the low end of the standard sentencing range, saying she is a good candidate for rehabilitation and all he was asking was for a second chance.

Johnson acknowledged calling it a mercy killing is not a defense, but said it was an explanation, if there was an explanation.

“Laura realizes her explanations are totally inadequate,” Johnson said. “She made a mistake and must pay the consequences.”

Hickey addressed Judge Hunt, although she was told she didn’t have to.

She apologized, but said she would accept whatever sentence he gave her. She asked him to give her a second chance at life.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done, I’m sorry for the baby I never gave a chance,” she said. “I’m sorry for my drug use.”

Then she laid her head down on the defense table, and appeared to cry.

Hickey will also get a mandatory extra two years because the plea agreement included a deadly weapon enhancement.

The family of Laura Lynn Hickey sit behind her as she is sentenced.