Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A flood watch first issued Thursday for portions of Western Washington including Lewis County has been extended through Monday afternoon.

Yet another system expected to bring substantial rainfall late today through tomorrow, combined with high snow levels of 8,000 to 9,000 feet could drive many rivers over flood stage, according to the National Weather Service.

For comparison, White Pass is at an elevation of 4,500 feet.

The potential is for minor to moderate flooding, the weather service’s mid-day forecast notes.

The Cowlitz River at Randle is forecast to exceed flood stage by the most and crest sooner than most rivers around Lewis County.

By 10 p.m. tomorrow, the river could be just over major flood stage of 22 feet.

Lewis County Fire District 14 Chief Jeff Jaques said at that level, “it’s not going to inundate a bunch of homes or anything.”

However, Jaques said this evening, he expects U.S. Highway 12 will be under water and closed with a detour on Silverbrook Road at Randle. And state Route 131 out towards Cispus will likely be covered with water well, he said.

“Fortunately we don’t have a lot of snow in the mountains like we did in 2006,” he said.

In November 2006, rain combined with a big snowmelt lifted the Cowlitz River to just over 25 feet devastating areas around Randle and Packwood.

The fire chief said it was reasonable dry today and only began raining a few hours ago.

It’s not a huge issue until it gets around 23 to 24 feet in Randle, he said.

The community saw levels of about 22 feet in both January 2009 and November 2008, according to Jaques.

Within the past hour, the weather service changed its expectation of the river at Randle, now forecasting it may crest at just over 23 feet around 10 o’clock Monday morning.

A flood watch means conditions are favorable for flooding but flooding is not imminent or occurring.

Two to five inches of rain are expected in the Cascade and Olympic mountains through tomorrow.

The ongoing wet weather has prompted cautions about potential mudslides around Western Washington and also an avalanche warning in the mountains through tomorrow.

The Newaukum River near Chehalis is forecast to crest about a foot over flood stage around 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.

The Skookumchuck River at Bucoda is also forecast to crest about a foot over flood stage but not until 10 p.m. tomorrow night. It’s expected to remain below flood stage in Centralia.

And about 10 a.m. on Monday, the Chehalis River at Centralia and Grand Mound is expected to crest between one and a half and two feet above flood stage.

•••

Watch the river levels and their forecasts for yourself here now or, anytime, by clicking on “River levels” under “Other useful web links” on the right hand side of Lewis County Sirens pages.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

OLYMPIA – She used meth. He sold drugs, she said.

She was 25 years old and had been staying with him at his mobile home in Rochester.

Robert J. Maddaus Jr.

Jessica Abear described Nov. 13, 2009 as she answered questions from attorneys in Thurston County Superior Court yesterday.

“I was sleeping on the couch, I remember waking up to the door being kicked in and the people saying ‘freeze’,” she said.

Abear, now 26, recalled thinking it was three, maybe four, people, who ran in and down the hallway, as someone tall held a gun to her head and told her not to move. She vaguely remembers a bandana and sunglasses, she said.

“I remember them – I don’t know if this was because I was coming out of a dead sleep – maybe speaking another language,” she said. “The only thing I did hear in English was ‘I’ve got it’.”

They were in and out really quick.

“I want to say a Mexican accent, but speaking Russian,” she said.

Shaun Allen Peterson

Abear is a witness in the murder trial of Robert J. Maddaus Jr. The 41-year-old Rochester man is charged in the death of Shaun A. Peterson who was found handcuffed and fatally shot on an Olympia street early on Nov. 16, 2009.

Maddaus is charged with first-degree murder, as well as four counts of witness tampering. He was also charged in the same case with attempted kidnapping and second-degree assault of Abear, which allegedly occurred just days before Peterson was killed.

Witnesses testified earlier this week Maddaus was a dealer trying to track down who’d stolen drugs and cash from him in the days before Peterson was slain.

Olympia resident Eric Gripp told the court Maddaus showed up at his fifth-wheel home earlier that weekend holding a gun, and said he’d lost “… four pounds of crystal, a pound of marijuana and $15,000, I think.”

Yesterday, as Abear sat on the witness stand for more than an hour, she described running next door to Maddaus’s mother’s house to tell her he’d just been robbed and to call him. She didn’t know where he was.

She said she returned to the mobile home, and grabbed a can of bear mace.

“Yeah, I was concerned maybe those people would come back and I was concerned how Bobby would feel about it,” she said. “I was afraid he would think I had something to do with it.”

Under questioning, Abear told what happened after Maddaus arrived at his home some 10 minutes later.

“He was pissed,” she said.

Maddaus didn’t believe her story and thought she was protecting someone, she said.

“Yeah, he hit me in the head with the butt of a gun, sprayed me with bear mace, ripped my clothes off and shot me with a paintball gun,” she said. “He acted like he was going to shoot me in the foot. He told me to stick my foot out, saying he was going to get it out of me.”

“Were you afraid?” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Bruneau asked her.

“Yes, very,” she said.

Bruneau elicited that she heard Maddaus’s end of a telephone conversation telling someone he needed a place to take her “to get information.”

When Maddaus headed down the hallway, she ran back to his mother’s house, wearing her pajama shorts, she said.

Testimony from Gripp on Wednesday describes that Abear phoned him, her ex-boyfriend, crying, saying she needed to be picked up.

“She reeked of mace, she was hysterical,” Gripp said. “So everybody in my car kind of got exposed to it.”

They took her to his Olympia home and used milk to neutralize the mace, he said. Gripp said he saw some 30 quarter-sized welts on Abear’s body.

Gripp said it didn’t seem “comfortable” the way Maddaus had paced back and forth outside, talking on a cell phone when Gripp had taken Abear away from the Rochester property, so he told his neighbor, “If anybody shows up, call the cops.”

Within two or three hours, Maddaus, holding a gun, and four other people were knocking on his door, Gripp said.

“He said he was looking for Jessica Abear,” he said.

“He said he’d lost a lot of personal property,” Gripp said. “Yeah, drugs. Then I decided it was okay to let her talk to them.”

Abear told the court Maddaus was less angry, but still thought she set up the robbery and wanted the truth out of her.

The neighbor must have called the police.

“The phone rang, it was the cop,” Abear said. “I handed the phone to Eric, I told everyone, ‘the cops are coming, get out of here’.”

When Thurston County sheriff’s deputy David Claridge arrived, she was in the bedroom area.

Abear said she told him she didn’t want to talk to him.

“I didn’t think it would help,” she said. “I thought it would probably make the situation worse.”

But about two weeks later, Abear did allow a detective to take photos of her injuries and interview her, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Bruneau said yesterday.

“I didn’t really have a choice, they already knew what happened,” she said.

Maddaus was arrested in Chehalis almost two weeks after Peterson’s death, following a high speed pursuit through the Chehalis Industrial Park.

After he was apprehended, a search of the Corvette in which he was a passenger turned up a nine millimeter pistol, more than $35,000 cash and a green backpack which contained two and a half pounds of methamphetamine, nearly a half pound of cocaine and almost one-third pound of heroin, according to charging documents in Thurston County Superior Court.

Maddaus is being held on $2 million bail.

Among the others who have testified in the first two days of Maddaus’s trial are an Olympia police detective, a forensic pathologist and examiners from the Washington State Crime Lab.

Olympia Police Officer Jeff Herbig described arriving to the scene where Peterson’s body was found about 4 a.m. on Nov. 16, 2009.

In the courtroom yesterday, Herbig identified various pieces of evidence he and his co-workers collected there, including a sweatshirt with holes in it laying on the street, a cell phone, and four shell casings.

Crime lab examiner Brenda Lawrence told the court the casings were from approximately 30 caliber bullets.

She identified them as what she called 7.62 x 25’s Tokarves, manufactured in China.

Dr. Eric Kiesel conducted Peterson’s autopsy.

Kiesel described a wound from a projectile that entered Peterson’s neck on his right side and exited the front; a fatal wound, he said.

Another entered his left arm and traveled through his chest before exiting; potentially fatal by itself, he said.

A gun shot wound on Peterson’s left forearm was described as superficial; contributory, he said.

The third injury looks different, because the projectile had either bounced off something or already gone through something, Kiesel said.

He speculated a bullet that exited Peterson’s neck could have struck the forearm that way, if Peterson’s cuffed hands were raised upward.

Charging documents allege Maddaus confronted Peterson about stealing his drugs while they were at an apartment on the 1800 block of Capitol Way Southeast in Olympia on the evening of Nov. 15, 2009 and the following morning.

Matthew Tremblay, who said he was present, said Peterson denied it and the three left the apartment, according to the allegations.

He said Peterson and Maddaus argued and then Maddaus fired about five shots, according to charging documents. Then Maddaus and Tremblay fled in Maddaus’s Jetta, he told authorities.

Maddaus has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is represented by defense attorney Richard Woodrow.

His trial in Thurston County Superior Court in Olympia is expected to resume on Tuesday morning.

•••

Read about
• Day one of Maddaus’s trial, here
• Why the first jury pool had to be dismissed, here
• Why Maddaus was convicted of just simple possession in Lewis County last month, here
• How Maddaus refused to testify against Robbie Russell in September, here
• How Russell and Maddaus tried to outrun sheriff’s deputies a week and a half after Peterson’s death, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

OLYMPIA – Witnesses testified yesterday that Rochester resident Robert J. Maddaus Jr. was a drug dealer trying to track down who’d stolen four to five pounds of methamphetamine from him before a 40-year-old acquaintance was found handcuffed and fatally shot on an Olympia street.

Robert J. Maddaus Jr.

Shaun A. Peterson, 40, died early on the morning of Nov. 16, 2009.

Maddaus, now 41, was picked up by police about a week and half later in Chehalis.

Jurors in Thurston County Superior Court heard opening arguments yesterday from Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Bruneau and defense attorney Richard Woodrow. The trial is expected to take three weeks.

Woodrow says he plans to prove the actual gun man was Matthew Tremblay, an individual who was with Maddaus and Peterson that night, and when questioned by Olympia police, blamed Maddaus.

Maddaus is charged with first-degree murder, as well as four counts of witness tampering. He is also charged in the same case with attempted kidnapping and second-degree assault of a 25-year-old woman who said she was confronted by a gun-wielding Maddaus for her alleged part in the theft, according to charging documents.

Testimony began yesterday with Peterson’s girlfriend who said she and Peterson were living at her mother’s home in Tumwater in November 2009 after having a baby together the month before.

Peterson was unemployed though he did “side jobs” and sold drugs, Randi Henn said.

Henn said she’d met Maddaus a few months earlier and knew him as Bobby. “Bobby was his supplier, and friend, I guess,” she said.

She said the last time she saw Peterson was Sunday evening, Nov. 15, 2009. He’d been on the phone the phone with Maddaus, and he was going out to meet him, so they could confront who they’d thought stole the drugs, she said.

Other witnesses yesterday described hearing five gunshots in the neighborhood at the 1700 block of South Capitol Way Boulevard about 3 a.m. and seeing a dark car speed away.

One said he saw a man running and then jump into the back driver’s side of the car. Another saw it slam on its brakes and its driver get out and get into the passenger side before it drove off.

Peterson was laying on the street, with what looked like a gunshot in his neck and his hands cuffed in front of him when he died, said Olympia resident Michael Wallace who ran outside his home after hearing the shots.

•••

Read most recent previous news story on Robert Maddaus here

A 1981 Chevrolet pickup and a 1997 Mazda Protege collided in Winlock on Friday night. / Courtesy photo by Jay Eyestone

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

After 19-year-old Jay Eyestone called 911 and watched with two drivers as their wrecked vehicles begin to burn, he ran back into his grandparent’s Winlock home and grabbed a camera.

It was about 11:45 p.m. on Friday night when a pickup truck lost control on state Route 505 near Harkins Road and was struck by an oncoming passenger car.

Troy A. Criscola, 19, of Centralia, and Travis M. Thompson, 26, of Winlock, had both gotten out of their vehicles and were standing on the road by the time Eyestone first got outside.

Eyestone said he loaned his phone to one of the drivers so they could call their family and began shooting photos as the fire roared and the tires on the truck exploded one by one.

Though both the Chevrolet pickup and the Mazda Protege were totaled, Criscola was uninjured and Thompson had only a knee injury and a cut on his hand, according to the Washington State Patrol.

One of the two firefighters arriving from Lewis County Fire District 15 described it as a ball of fire with two vehicles fully involved.

Firefighter Patrick Jacobson said he wasn’t sure what caused the vehicles to ignite, but said it was a “pretty good (bad) wreck.”

After the flames were knocked down, Jacobson scanned the interiors to see if they were occupied. They wouldn’t have survived, Jacobson said.

“When I pulled up, there were flames 30 feet in the air,” he said. “There wasn’t much we could have done to save them, if there were people in the cars.”

A trooper cited Criscola, the pickup’s driver, for going too fast.

Eyestone shared these photographs yesterday after returning to school at George Fox University in Newberg, Ore.

The pickup and car were both destroyed in Friday night's crash in Winlock. / Courtesy photo by Jay Eyestone

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The would-be developer of property near Toledo that many hoped would become home to a $70 million regional equestrian center was sentenced this morning for criminal violations of the Clean Water Act, to include four months of home confinement with electronic monitoring.

Philip A. Smith, 53, of Chehalis, pleaded guilty in September to the federal charges related to clearing 98 acres of wetlands without the required permits.

Smith was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma also to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service and $20,000 restitution payable to the Environmental Protection Agency for investigative costs, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Oesterle said in a written statement Smith undertook the widespread land clearing operation with full knowledge of what was required and deliberately chose to ignore the rules, likely hoping authorities would never discover his violations, or would merely impose limited corrective action and a nominal fine.

Inspectors discovered the activity in October 2007.

“Mr. Smith gambled and lost,” said Tyler Amon, special agent-in-charge for EPA”s criminal investigation division in Seattle said in a news release. “Unfortunately he was destroying valuable forested wetlands in the process.

“We will vigorously peruse and prosecute anyone who unlawfully damages natural resources for personal gain.”

Smith had sought to strike a deal with promoters of what was dubbed the Southwest Regional Equestrian Center and conducted land clearing over a period of two years ending in late 2007 on property he owned off the southeast quadrant of Interstate 5 at the Toledo-Winlock interchange.

He had a permit to log part of the 190 acres he owed, but had no state or federal permit to disturb the wetlands, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Much of the property is covered in wetlands and small streams that drain into Lacamas Creek, which flows into the Cowlitz River and ultimately the Columbia  River. Neither Smith or anyone associated with the project ever applied for the required permits, according to the news release.

He was indicted by a federal grand jury in Seattle for allegedly dumping fill material onto wetlands without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He admitted in September when he pleaded guilty, to excavating wetlands and stream channels and redepositing or discharging the materials into waters of the United States, according to the news release.

The equestrian center deal fell through after he was fined by the state Department of Ecology.

Smith was ordered in early 2008 by the Environmental Protection Agency to restore the disturbed wetland, but did not comply, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A separate civil case has been filed requiring the restoration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Oesterle noted in the news release that Smith had run afoul of the same laws in 1998 on a different parcel of property.

“Mr. Smith miscalculated the government’s interests in this case,” Oesterle wrote in his sentencing memo. “Rather than simply seek voluntary compliance as was sought in 1998, the government pursued criminal sanctions.”

A fire investigator is looking at a possible electrical issue as a cause to last night's blaze on Harms Road. / Courtesy photo by Ted McCarty

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A 4-year-old boy is being credited with alerting family members to a fire last night in the Ethel area that destroyed the upper level of a home.

Eight people were in the house on the 100 block of Harms Road and Kurt Mullins had just put his two little grandchildren, ages 4 and 5, to bed upstairs, Fire Investigator Ted McCarty said this morning.

“Shortly after, the kids yelled they could smell smoke in the bedroom,” McCarty said. “He went in, found fire in a storage space, and at that point he gathered up the kids, and a couple older kids and they all got outside,” McCarty said.

Lewis County Fire District 8 Assistant Chief Don Taylor today called Byron Wilson “our local hero”. Taylor didn’t have the name of the other child.

A smoke alarm also went off and everyone escaped unhurt, Taylor said.

McCarty described the occupants as Mullins. his wife, three children and three grandchildren.

The 9 p.m. call to Lewis County Fire District 8 drew some 35 firefighters from four districts.

McCarty called it a stubborn fire.

When the second crew to enter the 1920s wood-frame house attempted to get upstairs, the stairwell was too hot and there was fire overhead so they had be pulled out, responders said.

Taylor, the incident commander, said they sprayed about 25,000 gallons of water on the fire.

The upper story was burned off and parts of it it collapsed down into the first floor.

McCarty said it appeared to start in the storage area under the roof’s eves and he’s looking at an electrical issue for the cause, but has nothing concrete yet.

The house is insured, he said. The Red Cross was contacted to assist the residents.

Taylor said it was knocked down by 3 a.m. and the last firefighters didn’t depart until about 6:30 this morning.

It’s been a record-breaking year for the Salkum area fire district as far as structure fires, Taylor said.

Last month, a Christmas Day fire chased six people out of a burning mobile home on Maple Crest Drive, and the month before, firefighters spent Thanksgiving night extinguishing a blaze at Misty Morning Dairy.

“Five, maybe six, would be a busy year,” Taylor said. “This past year, I think we’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of 15.”

The assistant fire chief didn’t have a good idea of why so many fires, but he is concerned it won’t slow down anytime soon.

“We had that earthquake and it’s guaranteed it damaged several fireplaces or chimneys” he said. “And I don’t know if people realize this.”

As winter continues and folks use their fireplaces more, the creosote can be expected to keep building up, he said, and damaged masonry is vulnerable.

While he isn’t pointing to that as a cause of the Harms Road blaze, Taylor said the bricks in portions of the chimney there were packed with the flammable material.

Rodney Wallace and his mother Darlene Wallace wait for an elevator in the Lewis County Law and Justice Center after his hearing on Thursday.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Toledo resident Rodney Wallace won his freedom from a state mental hospital this summer but found himself back in court last week after the hospital review board found signs he was slipping back into his mental illness.

The farm mechanic was 37 when he was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity of second-degree assault and felony eluding for a July 2005 incident in which he was accused of trying to run down his father and two deputies with a tractor near the family’s Toledo home. He had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Under state law, the hospital could hold Wallace as long as the maximum time he would have gotten if convicted, which is 10 years, but in August his attorney persuaded a judge Wallace was stabilized and should be allowed to live with his parents, Ralland and Darlene Wallace.

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt granted Wallace a release with conditions; among the requirements: that he take his medications, refrain from consuming alcohol, and meet regularly with both a community mental health professional and Western State Hospital’s community nurse.

But, Wallace was returned to the hospital in October after a meeting with the hospital’s therapist in which he described talking to his grandparents in heaven, complaining the FBI was following him and that his face was red, literally painted red, according to Senior Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher.

On Thursday, Wallace, his lawyer, his private psychologist, family and friends went before Judge Hunt in an attempt to convince him the hospital was overreacting in claiming he should remain locked up.

Meagher argued for the hospital.

“What the review board concluded was there were signs of decompensation, and that’s one of the conditions of his orders,” Meagher told the judge.

Wallace’s lawyer Zenon Olbertz suggested it was unreasonable to revoke the conditional release, especially since the hospital’s gradual recovery program means a minimum of a 13-month stay.

Olbertz said his client has followed the court’s requirements, taking his medications, seeing his therapists, and “there’s not one sentence in the record, since 2005, that he’ ever been a danger to anybody.”

He downplayed the report of delusional thinking.

“If everybody who has these kinds of thoughts were swept off the street, we wouldn’t have enough places to put them,” Olbertz said.

Hunt said the present situation was “almost predicted” before Wallace was allowed to return to the family farm in August. He revoked Wallace’s conditional release.

“I give a great deal of deference to Western State Hospital,” Hunt said. “I’m unwilling to subject the community to that risk.”

•••

Read “Toledo man released from Western State Hospital” from Thursday Aug. 19, 2010 here