Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The 62-year-old man who died Saturday night on U.S. Highway 12 near Packwood was one of the witnesses in the recently filed murder case against Randle taxidermist Erik Massa.

Donald G. Diemert was dead at the scene of a wreck in which his Pontiac Grand Am struck a guard rail and then crossed the highway and ran into a rock wall.

Troopers said it was a slow speed crash, not serious enough it should have killed him. His dog traveling with him survived unhurt.

The investigation at the scene ruled out any mechanical failure, according to Washington State Patrol Sgt. Jason Ashley. Troopers are leaning towards some kind of medical issue or something like falling asleep at the wheel, Ashley said.

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said Diemert was one of several witnesses and they’ll just figure out how to prosecute the case without him.

Meyer declined to say what testimony Diemert would have offered. He is one of seven people listed in court documents as having given witness statements to detectives.

“Now we’re just looking to keep that story as complete as possible,” Meyer said yesterday.

Massa was charged two and a half weeks ago with second-degree murder for the March 14 death of Guy W. LaFontaine, 58, of Federal Way.

LaFontaine died with two broken eye sockets and other blunt force injuries to his torso and extremities. Detectives found a broken shotgun with blood on it in an empty silo next to Massa’s shop, according to charging documents.

Massa, 43, is free on $25,000 bail and expected in court tomorrow for his arraignment.

Diemert was a retired Boeing worker who was involved in the Back Country Horsemen and formerly an avid boater when he lived in Federal Way, according one of his ex-wives. He moved to the Randle-Packwood area in 1996, Linda Diemert said.

He did contract work such as plowing driveways in the winter and haying in the summer, she said.

The Army veteran who served in Germany and Vietnam was hospitalized for several months after breaking his back and neck in a fall off a barn he was building in the summer of 2009.

He was paralyzed about two months and only got out of the hospital and returned home early last year, according to Linda Diemert.

A neighbor and fellow Vietnam veteran called him a tough old buzzard. The roof accident seemed like a big wake up call to Diemert, Bill Serrahn said in an email message.

“It was pretty amazing how he fought his way back from that,” Serrahn wrote.

Serrahn wrote that Diemert was happy when he saw him last week. He’d been working on his place, met a woman he liked from Yakima and, he had plans.

“The Gods gave him a bonus round of an extra year and a half, but I guess it was time to go,” Serrahn wrote.

Diemert’s dog is being cared for temporarily by his neighbor and ex-wife Lona Westby.

He is survived by two daughters Debra Ann Benfer, 34, of Covington; Bonnie Lynn Taylor, 33, of San Diego; and a sister Charlotte Fuller in Arizona.

Linda Diemert said his burial will be at Mountain View Cemetery in Auburn, though some of his ashes will be scattered at two of his favorite places; the Cowlitz River and Blake Island in Puget Sound.

Instead of flowers, his family is suggesting donations to the Humane Society.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A 22-year-old driver was killed when her car crossed the centerline and struck a Freightliner box truck head-on on U.S. Highway 12 in Rochester yesterday evening.

The Washington State Patrol reported that Ashley R. Davis-Jones, 22, of Tumwater, was eastbound when it happened, at about 5:15 p.m. Th crash occurred near Dallas Street, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Troopers found an open cell phone on the floorboard of her car and concluded the young woman had been texting in the moments before the collision, according to the state patrol.

The 65-year-old Rochester truck driver was reportedly uninjured.

The truck was hauling drums of iodine and bleach for use in dairy operations, according to Trooper Guy Gill. Responders from the state Department of Ecology were called to deal with a possible spill or leak.

Davis-Jones’ 2005 Mazda 3 was destroyed.

The highway was closed in both directions for hours, with a detour put in place.

Trooper Gill appealed to the public to consider the dangers of texting while driving.

“Collisions like this are completely preventable, and in a second can change the life of someone you know and love,” Gill wrote in a news release.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Among the first official actions after being elected Lewis County coroner was Warren McLeod’s announcement last month he would hold a coroner’s inquest into the controversial 1998 death in Toledo of former state trooper Ronda Reynolds.

But details such as what questions a citizen panel will be expected to answer and even what rules will guide the inquiry are not yet settled.

Coroner’s inquests in Washington state are rare; so infrequent, it’s difficult to find someone to pinpoint the guidelines under which they are held.

“Rules? That’s what I was asking, there are no set rules set by state standard,” McLeod said yesterday.

The 51-year-old who moved to Chehalis from Las Vegas two years ago to take a job as a community college forensics instructor has asked an outside coroner to preside over the inquest.

McLeod said he’s still “in the learning process” in a job that was held for almost three decades by physician’s assistant Terry Wilson.

Greg Sandstrom, president of the Washington Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners and an elected coroner himself for 12 years, says inquests here are not real common, but there are guidelines.

“The rules for it are drawn out in state law,” Sandstrom said pointing to the Revised Code of Washington.

“The coroner can issue subpoenas, the jury is six people,” he said. “The coroner is responsible for orchestrating the whole thing with the help of the prosecutor’s office.”

And Dan Blasdel, an elected coroner from Eastern Washington McLeod appointed to conduct the inquest in Reynolds’ death, says he uses protocols for coroner’s inquests held in Canada.

Blasdel is a past president of the state association and currently co-chair of its education committee.

“The association, we use the guidelines for inquests out of Canada,” Blasdel said. “Because it’s not a criminal trial. All it is is a fact finding tool.”

McLeod, and his challenger in the November election, both vowed to change the manner of death from suicide to undetermined in the Reynolds’ case that has been questioned vigorously for a dozen years by Reynolds’ mother, Spokane resident Barb Thompson.

The 33-year-old woman was found with a bullet in her head and covered by a turned-on electric blanket on the floor of a closet in the home she shared with her husband of less than a year, Ron Reynolds.

The case was closed by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office as suicide despite protests by the lead detective, within a week after the attorney for Ron Reynolds threatened to file a lawsuit if they didn’t cease the investigation.

Coroner Wilson changed his determination three times over the years as the sheriff’s office case was reopened and then closed again.

Thompson won an unprecedented judicial review of the coroner’s decision, after which a judge ordered Wilson to remove the suicide designation.

The highly publicized civil proceedings in November 2009 in Lewis County Superior Court cast suspicions on Ron Reynolds, a Toledo Elementary School principal, as having a hand in the death. They also became the framework for best-selling author Ann Rule’s book on Ronda Reynolds released last autumn.

Wilson didn’t change the manner of death before leaving office in December. His appeal of the order is still making its way through the courts.

In his first days in office, McLeod changed the manner of Reynolds’ death to undetermined.

When he announced the inquest a month ago, McLeod said it was time for a final resolution.

Realizing he had only two choices, review it himself or conduct the review in a public forum – a corner’s inquest – he chose the latter, to enhance public confidence in the final conclusion, he said.

“The purpose of the inquest is to bring the information out into the public,” McLeod said.

The reason for appointing Blasdel, to whom he granted all the powers and privileges of his office to preside over the inquest, was similar, according to McLeod.

“Some may view the coroners office has a vested interest in the way this comes out,” he said. “I wanted to remove that perception, I wanted to make it open and above board, the perception.”

Before making his decision public, McLeod made courtesy calls to the sheriff, former Sheriff John McCroskey and to Ron Reynolds, he said.

“I’ve talked to him before, when I changed the manner of death,” he said of Reynolds. “He is her next-of-kin. It was a short conversation, he didn’t have a lot to say.”

Lewis County has never held a coroner’s inquest before, as far as he knows, according to newly elected Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer.

Blasdel, the elected Franklin County coroner since 1994, said he has conducted more coroner’s inquests than anyone in Washington.

He’s done two.

His is the only coroner’s office in the state accredited by the International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners, according to Blasdel. The 55-year-old Pasco resident was president of the international association in 2006.

Blasdel has set a tentative date for Aug. 29 and expects the inquest to be no more than four days long.

“I will act as presiding judge over the inquest, to make sure the rules are followed,” he said.

The prosecutor – Lewis County Deputy Civil Prosecutor David Fine – will present the case to the jurors, he said.

There are no other attorneys, there is no cross examination, he said. Jurors cans submit questions, as can parties “with standing”, he said.

The decision of the jurors must be unanimous and they have five questions to answer, according to Blasdel. They are: the name of the deceased, date and time of death, place of death, cause of death and manner of death.

The inquest jury’s determinations are not binding, but McLeod has said he will abide by them.

Blasdel said he and Deputy Prosecutor Fine decided it was best to go outside Lewis County to get six unbiased citizens. They plan to hold the inquest in Clark County.

“Because I don’t think with all the publicity and press and everything in your county, I don’t think we could find anybody that hasn’t heard, read or has an opinion,” Blasdel said yesterday.

McLeod doesn’t know yet if he will attend.

The cost is estimated between $35,000 and $50,000, according to Blasdel and McLeod. It will come out of Lewis County’s budget.

Blasdel said in his 16 years in office, he only knows of a few coroner’s inquests held in the state; the two he handled in Franklin County, and two, maybe three or four, done by the Benton County coroner before he retired.

Some jurisdictions, such as King County, routinely hold inquests into law enforcement officer-related deaths, according to Blasdel and Sandstrom. However, those are not coroner’s inquests as they did away with the coroner system in King County in the late 1960s, according to a representative from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Canadians do it on a regular basis, according to Blasdel.

When asked, Blasdel said yesterday the proceedings do not include asking the jurors the question of who is responsible, if they decide it is a homicide.

“They’re not disposed to say who they think did it,” he said.

However, in a separate interview, McLeod said he understands state law says the jury’s verdict must include that, if it is known. And although he is not presiding, he expects that question will be asked.

“I’m going to have to sit down with (David) Fine and if that’s one of the questions he wants to ask, we’ll ask it,” Blasdel said later yesterday.

The two men haven’t yet met to work out the details, he said. That will happen next month,  he said.

Fine is out of the office this week and wasn’t available for an interview.

Lewis County Prosecutor Meyer said yesterday questions about the scope of the information which will be presented and other details are better directed to Fine than himself.

“But most likely everything that’s relevant to making a determination, whether good, bad or indifferent, from both sides,” Meyer said.

Meyer said he will be at the inquest, observing.

He has to be prepared for any actions or decisions that might be required by his office following the inquest, he said.

If someone is named as causing the death, he would have to decide what to do, he said. One of the RCWs states the coroner shall issue a warrant if the person committing the homicide is ascertained by the inquisition.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean a case starts, but I have to be prepared,” Meyer said.

The intricacies of the coroner’s inquest are up to Blasdel, he said.

Ron Reynolds didn’t return phone calls seeking his reaction to the coroners decision to hold an inquest.

Thompson, who’s almost always willing to discuss the case, is cautiously optimistic.

“Well, it could be a good thing or a bad thing,” she said this week. “If they do it right, I think it could be a good thing; if they actually go through all the evidence.”

The 63-year-old horse breeder found it somewhat concerning that Deputy Prosecutor Fine will be the one attorney responsible for the proceedings.

“He was fighting before in court against changing the death certificate and then he’s going to be unbiased in presenting evidence to a six-person jury in an inquest?” Thompson said. “I don’t know. He’s a sharp man. He’s capable of it, if he can play both sides.”

Her lawyer, Royce Ferguson, who has worked with her since her civil case was filed in August 2006, was more blunt about the choice of the civil attorney who will work with Blasdel. He called it a “head scratcher.”

“If McLeod wants it to look fair and impartial, that was 180 degrees the other way,” he said.

Thompson was surprised to learn of the coroner’s inquest not from McLeod, but in a phone call from the television show 48 Hours.

She said she sent the new coroner an email telling him it would have been better for him to let her know of his plans.

“That’s not his duty, but it was my understanding how he planned to treat families, keeping families in the loop,” she said.

McLeod this week said he notified Thompson through his attorney, and if not for the ongoing lawsuit, he would sit down with her anytime.

“I didn’t want her to think I’d become cold-hearted, but because of the way the situation is, we can’t have a one on one conversation without an attorney present,” he said.

The civil case that resulted in the 2009 judicial review is in the appeals court, currently on hold. It initially named Coroner Wilson, but even with Coroner McLeod now in the office it remains active.

Although the suicide label has been removed, and it won’t change Thompson’s situation, she and her attorney want the courts to define what should happen following a judicial review of a coroner’s determination, according to Thompson.

The particular law doesn’t lay that out.

Thompson wants a judge or the panel of jurors to have the authority to label a death a homicide.

Olympia attorney John Justice, who was hired by the Lewis County Prosecutors Office to represent Wilson, has asked the court of appeals to find the trial court made some mistakes in how it admitted evidence in the Nov. 2009 review, among other issues.

McLeod said yesterday he wasn’t aware Deputy Prosecutor Fine worked with Justice opposing Thompson in the civil case.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The man struck and killed on Centralia-Alpha Road this morning as he was assessing the damage on his own car that had slid into a ditch has been identified as Steven B. Wirth, a 53-year-old Onalaska resident.

Wirth was traveling northbound near Beck Road and ended up in the ditch on the opposite side of the road, according to the Washington State Patrol. He then got out to inspect his car, Sgt. Ted DeHart said.

A northbound 2003 Mazda MX5, driven by a 36-year-old Onalaska woman, then slid on the icy road across the centerline and hit Wirth and his car, according to DeHart.

He was dead at the scene.

The Mazda MX5 rolled onto its top, coming to rest just north of Wirth’s vehicle. It’s driver, Jo L. Halverson, 36, was taken by ambulance to Providence Centralia Hospital with head and neck pain, the state patrol reported.

There was localized ice and frost on the roads in Lewis County this morning, DeHart said.

A the same time, some 100 to 200 feet away, a Ford Escort carrying two high school students had slid off the road, DeHart said.

Also, a fire department volunteer responding in their personal vehicle was almost stopped when it slid into the back of a Lewis County Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle, causing minimal damage to the volunteer’s vehicle.

It all happened around 7:30 a.m. about two miles north of Onalaska.

The collision is still under investigation, but DeHart said evidence suggested Halverson was not exceeding the posted speed limit and there did not appear to be any willful or wanton disregard for others on her part.

The MX5 was totaled, according to the state patrol. The amount of damage to Wirth’s 1985 Mazda RX7 was not described.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Seismologists at the University of Washington say they are thinking today’s earthquake near Mount St. Helens is not volcanic related.

A shallow quake of magnitude 4.3 struck at 10:35 a.m. six miles northwest of the volcano and 19 miles south of Morton, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

The quake and its aftershocks occurred right beneath the Johnstone Ridge Observatory, said Doug Gibbons, a research assistant at the U.W. seismic laboratory. They’ve been in contact with staff there and they were not damaged, he said.

The morning shaking happened in a place named the St. Helen’s seismic zone, he said.

“This is a zone with crustal faults, like others, and just happens to be close to the volcano,” Gibbons said this afternoon. “It’s in the park, but not under the crater and not within the zone where we’d be looking for volcanic activity.”

Lewis County Emergency Management this morning had received about a dozen calls from people who said they felt it in Morton, Mossyrock and Randle.

The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network got reports from people from Lake Oswego and Astoria Ore. up through Olympia.

The seismic network labeled it a light earthquake.

“A lot of those felt weak shaking,” Gibbons said.

This morning’s shaking was followed by at least eight aftershocks, two of which people noticed – one of 2.8 magnitude and another of 2.3, Gibbons said about 4 p.m. today.

“We haven’t had an earthquake like this with aftershocks in awhile,” Gibbons said. “We don’t usually get aftershocks that are felt.”

The last time the particular region saw an earthquake of similar size was a 3.9 earthquake on May 24, 2003, according to Gibbons.

Sgt. Ross McDowell, of Lewis County Emergency Management, said late this morning there were no reports of damage. However, because of its shallowness, folks could have cracking in their houses, he said.

Late this afternoon, the Lewis County 911 center had no calls reporting anything more than the quake was felt.

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash. reported this evening “(A)t present there appears to be no signs of unrest in the volcanic system.”

Gibbons said because the earthquake was only about three miles deep, “we think it’s just crustal faulting.”

By contrast, the quake on Nov. 16 near Mossyrock was about nine miles below the surface and initially recorded at 3.5 and upgraded to 4.2. It made the list of notable Pacific Northwest earthquakes since 1993, compiled by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

Today’s quake was in the same area where two weeks ago more than a dozen small earthquakes were felt, according to McDowell.

McDowell said folks should remember we live in an earthquake zone and they should be prepared, because there is little or no notification for earthquakes.

Washington state typically experiences over 1,000 earthquakes each month, according to Lewis County Emergency Management. Of these, approximately two dozen a year are large enough to be felt.

The public can follow the earthquake data at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network’s website

Follow observations of scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash. here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A site selection team for a new 1000-bed prison facility visited Morton and Winlock last week, looking at multiple properties in the two communities, both of which invited the state Department of Corrections to consider them.

“Jobs, that’s what prompted this,” said Pat Hart, a retired Morton business man who helped bring prison officials to the East Lewis County town. “That is what we need, jobs. It’s bad out here; unemployment is pushing 25 percent.”

DOC plans to construct a what it calls a new male reception center in Western Washington. It’s the place offenders go first, to be evaluated for physical, mental health, security and other needs and to determine the particular prison where they will serve their time, according to DOC.

The Washington Corrections Center in Shelton serves that purpose now, but prison authorities want to return it to its original role as a multi-custody prison and increase the number of beds in the system.

At the end of 2010, state prisons housed some 16,000 inmates spread out through 13 facilities, according to DOC.

Prison authorities say the construction of a facility specifically sited and designed for intake management purposes will increase efficiencies and result in lower construction costs as DOC expands to meet expected future capacity needs.

Interested communities had a Jan. 6 deadline to submit their proposals. The team has 16 sites to look over. Proposals came from as far north as Snohomish County, as far west as Raymond and south to Castle Rock. Grand Mound is also among them.

Hart, who toured with the team and others on Tuesday, said they looked at one site off state Route 7 just north of town owned by the state Department of Natural Resources and another owned by Hampton east off of Priest Road.

He thought the visit went well and that Morton would make a good place for the center.

“For one, the city is seriously for it, they want it,” Hart said.

Also, having Morton General Hospital right there is something other communities can’t offer, he said.

And it would be very good for Morton as well, he said, noting it could bring an estimated 300 corrections officer jobs, with their family-wage pay.

On Wednesday, the team visited Winlock to view two properties in the town’s urban growth area and another south off of Knowles Road, according to Mayor Glen Cook.

It’s not so much the jobs that make the center attractive to Cook, as they would be slow in moving into the area, Cook said.

The reception center would be a very good utility customer and could be an anchor in a future industrial park, he said.

The mayor thinks the community has a good shot at getting the Department of Corrections to choose them.

“I have a positive feeling on it,” he said.

Hart said they were told the site selection team was about halfway finished with its touring and hopes to narrow the field to three by the end of March.

The team is looking for 40 to 50 acres available for purchase and development with utilities available or planned and less than a 30 minute drive to Interstate 5 or I-90, as well as nearness to police, fire and emergency services which are willing to respond and within a reasonable distance to a shooting range, according to its criteria.

The state legislature last year approved funding to find a location and for pre-design costs but have not yet approved funds to build the new facility, according to DOC.