Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A man arrested Tuesday for rape of a child was found dead of an apparent suicide in the Lewis County Jail last night, according to the sheriff’s office.

Jail staff found the 40-year-old inmate yesterday evening had apparently strangled himself using bedding in his cell, according to a news release. He was originally from Morton, the sheriff’s office reported.

The man was isolated in a high-security cell by himself. He had requested that, said Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown. Suicide notes were found in his cell, according to Brown.

Corrections officers indicated there were no signs of suicidal behavior from him, according to Brown.

An autopsy will be conducted. His identity was not released.

However, Daniel W. Fish, 40, was booked Tuesday for  third-degree rape of a child, second-degree rape of a child and indecent liberties after he was arrested by the Morton Police Department.

Police Chief Dan Mortensen said yesterday Fish was a Mossyrock resident.

Fish’s arrest was in connection with several incidents of sexual abuse of a female relative over the years that were recently reported to police, according to Mortensen. Most of the alleged incidents occurred when the victim was 14 or 15 years old and one when she was 12 or 13, the chief said.

Medical personnel were summoned by jail staff after the discovery. The inmate was pronounced dead at the scene. Deputies were called to the jail just after 6:30 p.m., according to Brown.

It’s the third inmate suicide in the jail in the last four years, Brown said.

Brown said they don’t believe he hanged himself, he apparently strangled himself with the bedding, she said.

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This news story was updated at 8:14 a.m. on Thursday Aug. 26, 2010

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

John Allen Booth Jr. is in custody in Spokane, Sheriff Steve Mansfield said this evening.

The Lewis County sheriff said he had few details to offer, but the suspect in the weekend triple homicide was picked up without incident, nobody was hurt, he said.

John A. Booth Jr.

The sheriff said his people will go over there tomorrow to pick Booth up.

U.S. Marshals found the 31-year-old fugitive at a home on West Gordon Street in Spokane late this afternoon, according to the U.S. Marshals Service in Spokane.

Their task force and members of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office went there around 6 p.m., according to Supervising Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Doty.

“We went to the house, surrounded it and he came out and surrendered,” Doty said this evening.

Booth Jr. has been the subject of an extensive manhunt since early Saturday morning when four people were found shot – three fatally – in a home in the Onalaska-Salkum area. Sheriff Mansfield has said detectives believe the slayings involved a drug debt collection.

The Onalaska man is charged with murder in the deaths of David J. West Sr. 52, and his son David J. West Jr., 16, who lived in the rambler and also Tony E. Williams, 50, of Randle. He is also charged with attempted murder in connection with a 51-year-old witness who was at the house. The U.S. Marshal’s Service identified her tonight as Denise Salts.

Doty said 15 or 20 law enforcement officers were on hand for the Spokane operation and Booth was taken into custody without incident.

The residence belonged to a man who likely didn’t know of Booth’s situation, according to Doty. He didn’t expect that individual would be in trouble.

“Apparently a gentleman he met that let him stay there,” he said.

The capture was coordinated by the Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force, a multi-state group just formed this month.

Doty said the task force began looking for Booth last night and did quite a bit of surveillance when they figured out where they believed Booth to be.

In a news release just before 10 p.m. tonight, the U.S. Marshals Service said the task force approached the residence and ordered all inhabitants to come out.

One adult male and Booth came out with their hands raised, according to the news release.

The agencies involved in tonight’s arrest – which may have occurred closer to 6:25 p.m. Doty said later this evening – also included Border Patrol, CBP Air and Marine, Washington state Department of Corrections and the  Moses Lake Police Department.

U.S. Marshal Mike Kline of Eastern Washington said in the news release tonight’s arrest demonstrates the benefits of the outstanding working relationship between law enforcement agencies in the state.

“The hard work from all involved put a quick resolution to this tragic event, and that Mr. Booth will now stand trial for the crimes he is alleged to have committed,” Kline stated.

Booth was wanted on a Department of Corrections warrant and on a $10 million warrant out of Lewis County Superior Court.

He was on community supervision with DOC as he had just been released from prison in December where he served about five and a half years after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree assault for a Centralia incident. It was his third prison stay.

The state agency on Saturday activated its Southwest Community Response Unit, a group designed to apprehend former inmates wanted on warrants for violating the terms of their community supervision. The units in Seattle and Spokane began working with them as well, according to a spokesperson from DOC.

DOC Spokesperson Chad Lewis said earlier today the last time the units had a search this extensive was in November when they were looking for Maurice Clemmons, a felon under their supervision who gunned down four police officers in Lakewood.

Booth is currently in the Spokane County Jail.

When the DOC warrant was issued on Saturday, a similar warrant was issued for 28-year-old Ryan Joseph McCarthy, on information from the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, according to Lewis.

Sheriff Mansfield has named McCarthy a person of interest in the case.

McCarthy was picked up about 1 a.m. on Sunday at a home in Redmond and taken Monday to the Lewis County Jail. McCarthy was released from prison on July 29, Lewis said.

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This news story was last updated at 11:08 p.m. on Wednesday August 25, 2010
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For background on the case, read previous stories here.

John A. Booth Jr.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Law enforcement believes the second two murders in Onalaska were committed in part to eliminate witnesses from the first killing, according to court documents filed in the weekend  triple homicide case.

Charges filed late yesterday against John Allen Booth Jr. include a count of extortion. The 31-year-old suspect from Onalaska is still at large and considered armed and extremely dangerous.

The details of what happened inside the house off Gore Road early Saturday morning remain sketchy, as a judge sealed the affidavit of probable cause, the document describing the evidence that accompanies the information document filed when an individual is charged with a felony.

John A. Booth Jr.

At least three witnesses survived the shootings and their lives are at risk as long as Booth isn’t caught, prosecutors wrote in their declaration asking Lewis County Superior Court Judge Richard Brosey to seal part of the file. One witness is a 51-year-old listed yesterday afternoon as in stable condition, whose gender authorities have not confirmed.

Booth is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, and one count of attempted first-degree murder.

The dead are David J. West Sr. 52, and his son David J. West Jr., 16, who lived in the sand-colored rambler and also Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral.

Booth is also charged with first-degree extortion and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. He is convicted felon who was just released in December from his third stay in prison.

Bail is set at $10 million.

Court documents accuse Booth of second-degree murder, intentionally causing the death of West Sr. They allege first-degree murder – premeditated and intended – in the slayings of West’s 16-year-old son David West Jr. and Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral.

The maximum penalty for those, and for attempted murder, is life in prison. The extortion and firearm possession each have a maximum penalty of 10 years.

Booth’s address is listed by the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office as on the 1500 block of Middle Fork Road in Onalaska, the same place it has been since his first adult felony arrest when he was 18 years old.

An man described by the sheriff as a person of interest was booked yesterday morning into the Lewis County Jail. Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield said the individual was picked up by the state Department of Corrections for a probation violation.

More later.

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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A $10 million warrant was issued late today for the arrest of John Allen Booth Jr. wanted for two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in connection with the slayings off Gore Road this weekend.

John A. Booth Jr.

The 31-year-old man from Onalaska is still at large.

Another person has been arrested and is in custody in the Lewis County Jail.

Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield called the individual a person of interest in the case but declined to say more about what that meant. Mansfield said the individual was picked up by the state Department of Corrections for a probation violation.

Mansfield in a news release this afternoon said the survivor from the triple homicide is in stable condition. The sheriff said the fourth victim of Saturday’s early morning shootings is 51 years old. He still won’t reveal if that person is a male or a female.

Booth was just released in December from his third stint in Washington prisons.

When deputies arrived about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday to the Onalaska-area home, they found three dead. They are David J. West Sr. 52, and his son David J. West Jr., 16, who lived there and also Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral. The status of West Sr.s girlfriend who reportedly resided there hasn’t been revealed by the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office released an updated photo of Booth and say he is still believed to be driving a turquoise 1995 Saturn Coupe, with a license plate of 319 UEB.

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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.

David J. West Jr., 16, with his dad's motorcycle from the teenager's MySpace page

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Sixteen-year-old Forrest Moore of Onalaska described his slain friend as a student who got “amazing” grades, with a father who kept a fairly tight leash on him and who looked forward to one day inheriting his dad’s root-beer colored show car, a 1968 442 Oldsmobile.

David J. West Jr., 16, was one of three people found shot dead inside his Onalaska area home early Saturday morning.

“He was a rare friend, he loved life, he never got in any trouble,” Forrest said yesterday. “He pretty much got to do whatever he wanted that was legal, he had a good life.”

David, who went by D.J. died along with his father David J. West Sr. 52, and Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral in the West’s rental home off Gore Road, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. A fourth individual who was wounded with a gunshot was hospitalized.

Authorities have issued a nationwide arrest warrant for the suspect, 31-year-old John Allen Booth Jr. from Onalaska.

The two teenagers became best friends when they were both new at Onalaska High School, according to Forrest. D.J. came from Mossyrock and Forrest moved to Gore Road from Centralia.

The two more or less kept to themselves because they were both the type who didn’t talk much, according to Forrest.

The teenagers hung out at D.J.’s house a lot, so much that when Forrest planned to stay over again Friday night, D.J.’s father said no, because he’d been spending the night so much lately. Forrest said it made his mother cry to know he easily could have been there when the shootings happened.

Forrest said his friend’s father was somewhat strict, giving his son a curfew but letting him do lots of things as long as he knew where his son was and how to get a hold of him.

“His dad was a really great dad for him , he was like his best friend,” Forrest said.

The boys spent one day late last week helping clean up rocks from around the West’s cement fish pond. “I made $40 and that’s the only reason I could go to the fair,” Forrest said.

He said D.J. recently confided in him how tough it was going to be when his dad went away to prison soon because he’d never really been away from him.

Forrest described D.J.’s father’s trouble as coming from when he and a friend beat up some kids.

West Sr. was arrested last summer after he and two other men allegedly ambushed several teenagers camping outside Winlock when West Sr. was reportedly trying to get back money he believed some of them had stolen from him. West. Sr. admitted hitting a 17-year-old boy with a jack handle, and retrieving $4,000, according to charging documents in his case. Another man, 45-year-old Robert S. Russell, allegedly brandished a handgun and fired a shot during the incident. West Sr. has pleaded guilty but his sentencing has been repeatedly postponed, according to court records.

Forrest said he doesn’t think the weekend killing was about a drug debt, like the sheriff’s office says. D.J.’s father didn’t seem like that kind of person, he said.

“He had a lot of friends over but I knew nothing about drugs, he seemed clean to me,” Forrest said. “I just want the true story to be told, I don’t want them slandered.”

The teenager said he even met the suspect Booth Jr. at D.J.’s house when he came over one night several weeks ago with another man.

“He was really big and really scary, but quite polite,” he said. He had really huge arms, he added. “He didn’t strike me as bad.”
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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Two of the three people slain in the early Saturday morning shooting in the Onalaska area are a father and his 16-year-old son who lived in the house, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office said this afternoon.

David J. West Sr. 52, and David J. West Jr., 16, were dead at the scene when deputies arrived about 2:30 a.m. yesterday.

The third individual who died is named as Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Steve Mansfield is still not identifying the fourth person shot and wounded but said that person is in good enough condition they can talk and be interviewed by his detectives this afternoon. The individual was taken by Life Flight helicopter to an undisclosed hospital.

David West Jr. would have been a junior at Onalaska High School this fall, according to Forrest Moore, 16, who identified the young man who went by D.J. yesterday as his best friend.

Moore and two of his other friends yesterday said D.J. lived with his father and his father’s girlfriend at the house.

They also said a couple lived in a trailer on the property. Sheriff Mansfield said this afternoon there were other people who lived on the property who were not involved in any way.

John Allen Booth Jr.

The sheriff’s office is still searching for their suspect, John Allen Booth Jr., 31.

Mansfield said his office continues to work around the clock following up on dozens of leads. They are being assisted by several agencies across the state, he said.

Mansfield said in a news release he wants to remind the public Booth is armed and considered extremely dangerous.

The blue or teal Dodge Diplomat they thought Booth might driving has been found, Mansfield said. Now they are looking for another car he may be driving. It is a turquoise 1995 Saturn Coupe, with a license plate of 319 UEB.

“We need to get a hold of him,” Mansfield said. “My goal is to make that happen without anyone else getting hurt.”

Autopsies on the dead are scheduled for Monday, according to the sheriff’s office.
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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.