Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Guadalupe Solis-Diaz Jr. was back in a Lewis County courtroom today as lawyers begin the process to address a court order to resentence the former Centralia High School student.

Five years ago, Solis-Diaz was given nearly 93 years in prison for a crime he committed when he was 16 years old.

He was arrested in August 2007 after gunfire was sprayed along the east side of South Tower Avenue in Centralia, missing six bar patrons. Witnesses testified it was gang-related.

A sentencing hearing was set for May 17 in front of Judge Nelson Hunt, who presided over his trial and sentenced him the first time.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Sara Beigh said today she will be writing a brief to the court to address how long the new sentence should be and why.

Her boss, elected Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer, said they don’t know yet exactly what they will recommend.

Defense attorney Robert Quillian said he will be doing the same, and has much work to do, studying the case and the legal issues involved.

The appeals court referenced some matters that could have been handled differently, Quillian said.

Quillian indicated to the judge he will ask for an investigator.

Among the shortcomings identified by the Washington State Court of Appeals in its September decision, was the lack in 2007 of a pre-sentencing report which could have shed light upon issues related to the teen’s mental and emotional sophistication.

Solis-Diaz challenged his virtual life sentence in light of a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held a sentence of life without parole is forbidden for a juvenile who did not commit homicide.

He has been incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla-Walla. His attorney requested today he remain in the Lewis County Jail for closer access for meetings.

Today, in the Chehalis courtroom, were Solis-Diaz’s mother Elizabeth Dan, and nearly 20 apparent supporters.

Dan was reluctant to speak about the case.

“I just don’t want to read anything bad about my son,” Dan said. “I tried to raise my son the best way I know how. And that’s it.”

Chehalis defense attorney Chris Baum was a deputy prosecutor in 2007. He handled the case.

“This is a tough situation and I’m not sure where it’s going to go,” Baum said this afternoon. “I’m very curious.”

The 2007 sentence was driven by statute, Baum said.

First, although Solis-Diaz was only 16, he was treated as an adult in adult court, Baum said. The multiple convictions for first-degree assault had to be served consecutively.

“And no matter how you slice it, there’s 30 years on the firearms enhancements,” he said.

Baum suggested it needs to be dealt with by the legislature.

His prediction is the new sentence will also be very long, because of the statutory framework in place, and it will get appealed and a higher court will sort it out further.

“The judge has very little discretion,” Baum said. “The real authority is in the hands of the prosecutor. It’s the charging decision.”

Prosecutor Meyer said the Lewis County case is front and center right now among prosecutors around the state.

The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys is putting together prosed legislation to deal with cases that amount to life without the possibility of parole for juveniles, Meyer said. They’re doing it because the Supreme Court has made it clear it has to be addressed, he said.

One idea would be something like a review after 30 years, according to Meyer.

Quillian, who is based in Olympia and been a lawyer since 1976, said sentences as long as his clients don’t occur very often at all.

He’s hardly seen any among his own cases, he said, if you don’t count murders and three-strike cases who are literally sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

“I can count them on one hand, I can tell you that,” he said.

•••

For background, read: “Appeals court gives Centralia teen a “do-over” on 90-plus-year drive-by shooting sentence” from Wednesday September 19, 2012, here

Keith and Lorrine Birdwell listen as their lawyer speaks for them in Lewis County Superior Court.

Updated

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The owners of Birdwell Brothers Auto Sales, accused of using deception to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Centralia-based  bank, went before a judge today, following the filing of criminal charges.

Keith A. Birdwell, 47, and Lorrine D. Birdwell, 44, were accompanied by a lawyer who notified Lewis County Superior Court Judge James Lawler the couple had already worked out an agreement with the prosecutor that actual bail money wouldn’t be required.

“They are longtime members of the community,” attorney Daniel Garner said.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead confirmed the couple could remain out of jail pending trial by each posting a $20,000 signature bond; a promise to appear for hearings.

Lawler approved the arrangement and ordered the Toledo couple to report to the jail to get their photos and fingerprints taken if not by 5 p.m., then tomorrow.

Garner said, outside the courtroom, he had no comment to make on behalf of his clients.

The Birdwells, who own a used car business with sites in Centralia and in Lacey, are each charged with one count of first-degree theft and five counts of felony unlawful issuance of a bank check.

The checks were allegedly written for several thousand dollars each over a period of three days this past July and returned for “not sufficient funds.”

The charges include special allegations the couple’s actions were major economic offenses with a high degree of sophistication.

The circumstances involve a form of a line of credit with Security State Bank, in which the unsold vehicles at the car lots were used as collateral for the loans, according to Centralia Police Department detective Sgt. Fitzgerald.

Charging documents describe how a bank employee conducting a check in July of the collateral could find only about 10 of the 55 vehicles which should have been on the car lots.

“The bank’s unrecovered losses on these ‘flooring’ loans was hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Eric Eisenberg wrote in charging documents.

The “bad” checks – a secondary issue – caused the Birdwell’s business account at Security State to go into the red by more than $160,000, according to Eisenberg.

The police investigation began in August after the bank contacted police about the situation. Detectives secured several search warrants to examine the couple’s bank accounts and their home in Toledo.

Charging documents suggest the bank discovered a potential problem in July, but the ensuing investigation found the alleged deception on the part of the Birdwells began around the previous October.

Eisenberg describes the loans this way: In order to finance the cars available for sale on their lots, Birdwells had a line of credit with their bank, allowing them to stock their dealership while maintaining capital to acquire new vehicles.

Security State would make a so-called flooring loan on each incoming vehicle and Birdwells promised – in their contract – to notify the bank and pay off each loan within 10 days of selling the vehicle.

Birdwells also agreed to notify the bank of any change in a car’s location.

The bank would periodically inspect the lots to check on the unsold vehicles and offer new loans on newly acquired cars, according to Eisenberg.

The police investigation found examples of alleged misrepresentations on Birdwells’ part, such as allegedly obtaining loans on three cars they did not own, and in other cases, allegedly failing to notify the bank a car had been sold.

In those cases, they either acquired or maintained their flooring loan for weeks or months after the sale, charging documents state.

When a bank employee would visit the dealerships, the employee was told the car was at the shop, at another dealership or being sold at an off-site sale, the court documents allege.

“Birdwells would also pass one car off as another, to suggest it was still on the lot, when in fact it had been sold,” Eisenberg writes.

It’s more than just not being able to pay back a loan, which would be a civil issue, according to police.

“There is a space in there where it’s ambiguous, but they crossed that threshold when they began deceptive practices to keep the bank from getting its money back,” detective Sgt. Fitzgerald said.

It came to a head in July, when a bank employee discovered 21 vehicles were unaccounted for, according to charging documents.

Keith Birdwell explained that away, but the following day got a phone call from the bank’s president asking about the discrepancies and asking why the bank was not receiving loan payments after car were sold, according to the documents.

The charging papers give the following account:

The two set a meeting for July 24, but it was rescheduled for July 26.

However, on July 24, the bank conducted an unannounced “flooring check” and that’s when only about 10 of the collateralized cars could be found.

Beginning that day, Keith Birdwell allegedly wrote several checks from their Twin Star Credit Union account to their Security State account. The first one was for $29,750, all but one of the others were larger.

However, the Twin Star account – which for months had a working balance of $25 to $105 – did not contain nearly enough money to cover the checks.

The Birdwell’s representative told police detective Rick Hughes that Keith Birdwell expected to cover the checks with a loan from an associate. The associate told detectives he had not promised a loan, but had only said it would be considered.

Criminal charges were filed on Jan. 8. The Birdwells were summonsed to appear in court today.

First-degree theft, without the aggravating circumstances tacked on, has a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and / or a $20,000 fine.

A court date was set for February 7 in which the Birdwells will appear before a judge again to make their pleas.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Powdered heroin. Blow dope.

The drug is showing up in a new form locally, reportedly found most often among young people.

Police have encountered a sudden spike of it in Lewis County, according to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office.

“Apparently you can blow on it, or add some moisture and then smoke it,” Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke says it’s essentially powdered heroin, that clumps up when mixed with water.

“Law enforcement suspects it might be a new arrival, maybe easier to smuggle as powder,” he said.

O’Rourke said he saw his first case yesterday when he charged a 20-year-old man who was arrested Sunday in Winlock for allegedly selling it.

Matthew C. Gilmon was ordered held on $20,000 bail when he appeared briefly in Lewis County Superior Court. He is charged with two counts of delivery of heroin, an offense with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

According to charging documents, Centralia police came across an individual early last month who was willing to work with them on undercover buys.

Once officers watched the “confidential informant” drive to the Subway next to Jack-in-the-box in Chehalis, where he or she parked, got into a maroon Volkswagen Jetta and emerged with $20 worth of the powder in a small tin foil bindle, according to charging documents.

Two weeks ago, the same informant approached the same suspect and purchased more, all while under police surveillance, charging documents allege. The price is not mentioned in the second transaction.

The brown powdered substance has an odor of vinegar, consistent with being heroin, according to the documents. The suspected narcotics field tested positive for heroin, the documents state.

Centralia Officers Lowrey and Haggarty on Sunday contacted Gilmon at his last known address, on Lane Drive in Winlock, according to O’Rourke.

Under questioning, Gilmon denied delivering heroin, but subsequently said he does help out friends who are “sick” by giving it to them, according to charging documents.

He was booked into the Lewis County Jail.

O’Rourke admits he doesn’t know much about the so-called blow dope, since it’s new.

The powder will be tested at a lab, he said.

“That’s what they’re calling it on the street, I guess we’re gonna be seeing that pop up,” he said yesterday.

Gilmon, whose address is listed as in Chehalis in his court file, is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CENTRALIA – Why was a grown man who lived 13 miles out of town, and no longer drove, standing near the outside rail of the tracks in downtown Centralia in the middle of the night?

Nobody knows for sure, because he was struck and killed by a freight train last week.

But his ex-wife has a pretty good idea.

Michael T. Patton

Michael T. Patton, 58, lived alone in a house he built on Centralia-Alpha Road in Chehalis. Alzheimer’s ran in his family.

Some months ago, he’d developed a routine of walking to Centralia every day to visit his ex-wife, Gene Inmon.

Inmon was the one who took him to the Veteran’s Hospital in Seattle last May, where the doctor who took a brain scan told her he didn’t know how Patton was even functioning.

“I was around him every day so I didn’t notice it like other people did,” Inmon said. “But it was like every day, there was another piece of him gone.

“It’s a terrible disease.”

Thankfully his truck finally broke down, so he had to quit driving, Inmon said on a recent day as she recounted the downward spiral she witnessed in her former husband.

Sometimes he was giggly, as though he were a kid again, she said.

Adult Protective Services had begun the process to get him a guardian to mange his affairs, she said. He didn’t even know how old he was, she said, he needed to go into a some kind of home.

“I was terrified something was going to happen to him, because he was so confused,” she said.

Inmon, a sometimes substitute teacher who also works in an office in Tenino, said the disease came on fast and progressed rapidly, leaving few traces of the former “Pe Ell boy.”

Patton was single father who raised his three children in Pe Ell, she said. When he was younger, he was a a medic in the Army and served in Germany, she said.

For 35 years, Patton worked for Weyerhaeuser harvesting pine cone seeds during the season and then as a contractor in the off-season.

Inmon and Patton lived in Doty during their five-year marriage, after his daughter and two sons were mostly grown.

He was a fix-it guy, that little old ladies loved and a guitar player who composed songs he shared with friends, at home and at church, she said.

He attended Centralia Bible Chapel every Sunday before he got sick, she said.

Early last week, Patton arrived in Centralia with an orange reflective vest. Someone had stopped him on the road and given it to him, Inmon said. She doesn’t know who. He just told her it was a “gift.”

Inmon said it was his habit to stop and sort of hunker down into his shoulders when traffic would go by.

The day before he was killed, Patton wore his vest. He and Inmon did some shopping, had lunch, and she got him some movies before driving him home.

That night, she got a phone call from a process server looking for Patton’s address so he could deliver the guardianship papers.

It was 9 o’clock, she said.

“I told him, he’s asleep, he’s sick, don’t get him all riled up,” she said. “And that’s exactly what happened. I’m sure he was heading here.”

Patton died hours later.

Centralia police were called about 12:30 a.m. on January 9 to the area near Chestnut Street and South Tower Avenue.

Police were told by the engineer and conductor of the Union Pacific train they were near the Gold Street viaduct when they saw him and began sounding the horn.

According to the police report, the man was facing west with his hands in his pockets and just stood there.

He turned his head toward the train just before impact, police wrote.

Patton’s body landed only about 10 feet from the tracks. He was wearing the reflective vest over his leather coat, according to detective Rick Hughes. With him was a newly purchased pack of cigarettes and an unscratched lottery ticket, Hughes wrote.

The locomotive was stopped in the middle of the intersection at Maple Street. The engineer said he believed the train was slowed down to less than 40 mph.

Patton probably didn’t even know what the train’s headlight was, Inmon said.

His death was determined to have been accidental.

“It’s all very sad, and it should not have happened,” Inmon said. “There’s a side of me that’s angry and sad, and a part of me that thinks he’s released from that.”

Last year in Washington, there were 14 people struck and killed by trains in Washington. The year before, there were 26.

The stretch of tracks through Centralia is the busiest route in the state, with an average of 60 trains each day.

Patton is survived by his children, Jennifer Coucoules, Allen Patton and Edward Patton, their families and also by two brothers and two sisters, according to Inmon.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday Jan. 26, 2013 at 1 p.m. at Centralia Bible Chapel, 209 N. Pearl St., Centralia, Wash. A potluck will follow.

Instead of flowers, his family requests donations be made to the Lewis County Veteran’s Relief Fund, 360 NW North St., Chehalis, Wash., 98532 or to the University of Washington Alzheimer’s Research Fund.

Updated at 1:51 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Tenino Elementary School teacher who is also a Boy Scout volunteer was arrested yesterday for possession of child pornography.

James D. Mobley, 46, came under investigation as authorities examined the records of an international company that distributed child porn through the mail, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Authorities allegedly discovered that Mobley purchased materials from the company on multiple occasions between February of 2009 and January of 2011, according to a news release today.

Mobley is described by federal authorities as a fourth grade teacher who is also a private tutor and active as a volunteer with Boy Scouts.

Any parents who are concerned about any contact he may have had with their children are being asked to call the Tenino Police Department.

In a search of Mobley’s Tenino home yesterday, law enforcement seized a computer hard drive and also DVDs containing child porn, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Emily Langlie.

Mobley is being held at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac pending a detention hearing. He is charged in federal court with possession of child pornography.

The case is being handled by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Tenino police.

The international company which sold the images is not named in the criminal complaint against Mobley, but it was almost two years ago when an unspecified foreign law enforcement agency searched the business and seized hundreds of child porn DVDs and business records, according to Langlie.

Ricky A. Riffe addresses his lawyer as a pre-trial hearing winds down in Lewis County Superior Court.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Ricky A. Riffe made an appearance in court today, the sixth time in six months as attorneys move toward a trial in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of an elderly Ethel couple.

Nothing momentous was on the agenda, but because the case is so voluminous, both sides want to make sure everything is staying on track as they go, according to Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer.

Meyer has said he has 150 witnesses.

Judge Richard Brosey today signed orders documenting some steps that have already been taken or are in progress, including notification of Riffe’s defense: He has an alibi and he didn’t do it.

No details on that were offered verbally during the court session.

Prosecutors contend Riffe, now 54, and his since-deceased brother abducted Ed and Wilhelmina Maurin and forced them to withdraw money from their bank in Chehalis before shooting them and dumping their bodies near Adna back in December 1985. Ed Maurin was 81 and his wife was 83.

The former Lewis County resident was arrested in July at his home in Alaska.

At today’s afternoon hearing in Lewis County Superior Court, at least three long-retired sheriff’s detectives, as well as elected Sheriff Steve Mansfield, were among those in the audience.

In the front row of benches behind prosecutors Meyer and Will Halstead as usual were Wilhelmina Maurin’s grown children and their family.

Riffe, wearing red and white striped jail garb, didn’t speak except to answer the judge’s inquiry as to whether he understood the orders being signed.

He is represented by Seattle-based attorney John Crowley.

Crowley informed the judge he expects to submit a series of motions. Judge Brosey indicated he wants to make sure any pre-trial hearings are scheduled such that they don’t delay commencement of the trial.

Deputy Prosecutor Halstead indicated it is still an unfolding case.

The trial is scheduled to start the week of May 6, a “drop dead” date to begin, according to the judge.
•••

For background, read “Maurin homicide: Riffe pleads not guilty, his attorney hints at proof” from Thursday August 23, 2012, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Lewis County coroner’s year-end tally shows a drop in accidental deaths during 2012 but several more suicides.

Last year, 21 people died in Lewis County from accidental causes, compared with 29 the year before, according to Coroner Warren McLeod’s numbers.

Most the those are due to overdoses, both from legally prescribed and illicit drugs, according to McLeod.

The number of deaths attributed to suicide however jumped from nine two years ago to 14 last year.

The coroner’s office tracks all deaths that occur in the county and is responsible for determining their cause and manner.

McLeod gave a brief report yesterday to the Lewis County Board of Commissioners, but did not expand upon any ideas about the changes. He has not yet compiled his official year-end report.

Last year, the coroner counted 822 deaths. The vast majority of cases overall are ascribed to natural disease processes.

When it comes to people taking their own lives, one of the most used methods is with firearms, according to the coroner. Hanging is second, he said.

“That’s the same as when I worked in Vegas,” McLeod said.

Lewis County saw four homicides last year, the same number as the year before.

Terry Vance, 58, of Onalaska, was stabbed to death in his bed last March by his adult son who is now serving a 30-year prison sentence.

David W. Carson, 43, Centralia, died the following week of two gunshots to his chest area in the home of a friend who is in jail awaiting a trial next month.

Two-year-old Koralynn Fister, of Centralia, died in May from head trauma and drowning while in the care of her mother’s live-in boyfriend. James Reeder, 26, pleaded guilty last week to homicide by abuse and other charges and faces possibly spending the rest of his life incarcerated.

Gregory S. Kaufman, 64, of Napavine, died in November from gunshots when he advanced upon a sheriff’s deputy with a knife in his hand along state Route 6 near Boistfort. The shooting was ruled as justified.

Two of last year’s deaths in Lewis County remain undetermined, although not suspicious, McLeod said.

Already during the first two weeks of 2013, he said, his office has responded to one suicide and one accidental death as well as two cases in which the manner is not yet known.