Lewis County Sirens.com

Enrique Orozco-Cabrera sits between his lawyer and an interpreter in Lewis County Superior Court, facing a drug charge.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – As soon as Enrique Orozco-Cabrera pleaded not guilty to attempting to sell more than two pounds of methamphetamine, his attorney told the Lewis County Superior Court judge he’d a like a court date as quickly as possible so his client could  plead guilty.

Orozco-Cabrera was in court on Thursday following his arrest the previous Friday morning by Centralia police who were accompanied by two special agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I don’t know very much English,” Orozco-Cabrera responded through a Spanish interpreter when the judge asked if he spoke English.

Orozco-Cabrera is 36 years old and from Seattle, according to the Centralia Police Department. Charging documents in his case indicate his city of residence is unknown, although when he was taken into custody on Nov. 23, he had Mexican identification in his wallet bearing a different name.

His defense attorney J.P. Enbody didn’t elaborate on why the man was so eager to plead guilty to the felony that could get him as much as 10 years in prison. But Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke had an idea about his drug case.

“There is some interest by federal prosecutors to take it, because of how much methamphetamine he had,” O’Rourke said after the court hearing.

A lot of times, a person faces much stiffer penalties in federal court, O’Rourke said.

Orozco-Cabrera, originally identified in an incident summary from police as Orozco-Caberra after the arrest, is being held in the Lewis County Jail on $200,000 bail.

Court documents describe his arrest at the unspecified “target location” after Centralia police got a tip a man called Lewis would be delivering two pounds of meth in exchange for $21,000.

Officer Adam Haggerty, Sgt. Jim Shannon and two federal agents made a plan early on the morning of Nov. 23 and before 8 o’clock that day, Haggerty was watching a house, according to charging documents.

The documents offer the following account and allegations:

A black Ford pickup truck drove slowly past Haggerty and moments later drove past him again and pulled far down a driveway. A few minutes after that, a man – later identified as Orozco-Cabrera – was seen walking from the back of the house wearing a dark stocking cap and subsequently went up to the front door and went inside.

Concerned, Haggerty phoned his confidential informant and asked if that was the drug dealer; the informant indicated yes and asked Haggerty to move in and apprehend him.

When officers entered the house, Orozco-Cabrera was holding a plastic shopping bag with what turned out to be two pounds plus 5.8 ounces of what field tested positive for methamphetamine. He had $6,000 cash with him.

The suspect was arrested and first gave his name as Andreas, but later gave his real name to jail staff and the identification was confirmed through his finger prints.

Customs and Immigration has a “hold” on him. O’Rourke said that usually means there is some indication a person might be in the country illegally.

Orozco-Cabrera is currently scheduled to plead guilty to possession with intent to deliver and be sentenced on Wednesday afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court.

A family of seven bailed out of their white Dodge Durango as a freight train approached from behind them in Chehalis.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – An out-of-town family that took a wrong turn in the dark tonight in Chehalis found their SUV traveling on railroad tracks as a freight train approached, bailed out and watched the train shove their vehicle more than a block.

Nobody was hurt.

Chehalis Police Department Office Steve Nikander said it was dark, it was rainy and they briefly lost their way.

“Thankfully they all got out,” Nikander said.

It happened about 7:30 p.m. near West Street by the Lewis County Historical Museum.

The mother, father and five children, ages 3 to 23, from Olympia, were westbound on West Street; on their way to ride the Chehalis steam train.

It’s the Polar Express, a holiday ride, said Nickolas Howzeshell, one of the grown sons.

Howzeshell, his wife and their baby were in a second vehicle behind his mother’s Dodge Durango and made the same wrong right-hand turn behind her, he said. He was able to pull his vehicle off the tracks.

“My dad’s like, get ’em out, get ’em out,” Howzeshell said. “I saw the light about a quarter mile away. We saw it happen.”

The northbound freight train was still stopped and blocking several crossings after 8 p.m. while authorities waited for a tow truck to arrive.

Instead of cocoa, singing and riding a steam train with Santa Claus, they stepped into the Ocean Sky restaurant for Chinese food while they waited for officers to collect their information.

“We were running late. We didn’t want to miss the train,” Howzeshell, said. “Instead, we … caught the train.”

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CORRECTION: This news story has been updated to correct the name of the city police department for which Officer Nikander works.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Nancy Punches pleaded not guilty today to keeping too many dogs in too poor of conditions on her property west of Chehalis and is working with a lawyer to get four of her foxhounds returned to her.

Nancy Punches

The 79-year-old Dryad woman was in Lewis County District Court this morning where she faces 65 counts of second-degree animal cruelty and one count of violating a state law regarding dog breeding.

Her 65 dogs were confiscated by county officials last month; animals which were living in an area overrun with feces, according to authorities. One puppy was dead when the sheriff’s office served their search warrant and at least three puppies have since been euthanized because of positive tests for Parvo Virus. Others were sick with a parasite, according to charging documents.

Punches has said in an interview she didn’t intend for the foxhounds to multiply, but their fencing had deteriorated. She has also said she knew the situation got away from her.

Three of the foxhounds are survivors of the December 2007 flood when Punches lost her home and 16 champion show dogs to the Chehalis River.

Punches has agreed to give up ownership of all but those three dogs plus one other, a 9-year-old male named Rythem, according to court documents.

Her lawyer Bart Ricks of Chehalis noted in a petition to the court that Lewis County Animal Shelter Amy Hanson had offered to return three of the dogs – spayed and neutered – if Punches relinquished the rest.

The civil action filed on Nov. 2 says Punches wants the four foxhounds returned to her immediately, subject to certain conditions which aren’t specified.

Court hearings are set for Dec. 6 and Dec. 20. when the lawyers and judge can begin addressing the issues involved.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Nelson asked the judge the consolidate the civil and criminal cases.

In a court document filed today, Nelson asks for answers from Punches about how she will prove her property is free of the diseases, how she will provide kennels fit for habitation and how she will not neglect or abuse the dogs if she gets them back.

Nelson said he didn’t ask Judge Michael Roewe to set bail for Punches, as he doesn’t consider her a flight risk or a danger to the community.

The crimes she’s accused of are misdemeanors, all with a maximum penalty of 364 days in jail or a $5,000 fine or both.

One of the conditions set today however allows her to keep only two pets, which Judge Roewe said were a cat and a bird.

When county code enforcement employees, animal shelter workers and volunteers descended upon the River Road property on Oct. 19, a deputy said he could not see the floor of some kennels because the water, mud and feces was so deep.

Two of the 65 seized animals are fox terriers – the rest foxhounds.

Some were taken to the Lewis County Animal Shelter, some to other municipal shelters and some to Pasado’s Safe Haven in Snohomish County.

Besides Rythem, Punches wants back Hawk, a 7-year-old male; along with 6-year-olds Spirit, a female, and Noah, a male who were pups that shared a 36-hour ordeal trapped in Punches’ mobile home as flood waters rose to within inches of her ceiling.

Punches floated upon a tipped-over antique bookcase after placing her five-week-old dogs inside a styrofoam shipping container.
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For background, read:

• “Lewis County owner of seized foxhounds charged with 66 misdemeanors” from Monday November 12, 2012, here

• “Aged flood survivor loses her stock of prize-winning canines for the second time” from Sunday October 21, 2012, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The trial in the 1985 Maurin kidnap and murder case has been postponed once again, from this coming February until May, with what the judge calls a “drop dead” date to begin.

The elderly Ethel couple died in December 1985, but the longtime suspect Ricky A. Riffe was only arrested this summer.

Ricky A. Riffe

Lawyers on both sides met with a judge two weeks ago to address a number of issues, including defense attorney John Crowley’s concerns the prosecution had still not handed over copies of all its information in the case.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer repeatedly said he’s turned over everything they have, but by the end of the hour, Judge Richard Brosey ordered Meyer to get the other side copies of some 30 taped interviews, copies of photographs, a copy of a computer hard drive, and to do more to track down a witness statement that Crowley asked about.

“I only want to do this once,” Brosey said, alluding to the fact that if the prosecution gets a conviction, but errors are made along the way, a re-trial could be ordered by the appeals court.

Also at issue is a timing conflict with a trial for another of Crowley’s clients.

Meyer expressed his previous concern that witnesses could die before they get a chance to testify.

“The fact is, we have 150 witnesses in this case, and they’re not getting any younger,” Meyer told the judge.

The trial could take as long as four weeks.

Riffe, 54, a former Lewis County resident, was arrested in July at his home in Alaska.

Prosecutors believe Riffe 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.

Riffe has pleaded not guilty, but remains held in the Lewis County Jail on $5 million bail.

A review hearing is scheduled for Dec. 19, the anniversary of the day 27 years ago the couple was reported missing.
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For background, read “Maurin homicide: Riffe pleads not guilty, his attorney hints at proof” from Thursday August 23, 2012, here

Travis M. Myers looks over paperwork allowing him to be released from jail after seeing a judge in Lewis County Superior Court.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – It was like a shoving match, but ended very badly.

The couple had been drinking. The mother shoved the father. The father shoved the mother knocking her to the ground.

The grown son shoved the father in the chest, who fell backwards, hitting his head on the sidewalk and losing consciousness.

It all happened late last Tuesday night in front of a Morton motel, where a trooper had dropped off 48-year-old Cathy Myers, after contacting her on the side of U.S. Highway 12 in her vehicle and intoxicated.

According to Morton Police Department Chief Dan Mortensen, the father and son had traveled from the family home in Vader to pick up the mother.

The couple argued; she didn’t want to go home because she’d spent money on a motel room, according to court documents from the police report.

When the shoving was over, Cathy Myers told her son to just leave, that she and her husband would spend the night in the motel and come home in the morning, court documents recount.

Travis M. Myers, 27, said he left not knowing his father was seriously injured.

Michael K. Myers, 52, died on Thursday at Haborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Travis Myers was arrested and now the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office is considering charging him with second-degree manslaughter.

Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher asked a judge yesterday to release the younger Myers, as he awaits the results of the autopsy.

Chief Mortensen said the older Myers had a serious head injury, but whether he died from that is an unanswered question, according to Meagher.

“At first glance it seems so, but we have to wait for the report,” Meagher said after yesterday’s court hearing.

Travis Myers’ appearance before a judge yesterday afternoon was brief. Meagher asked Lewis County Superior Court Judge James Lawler to release him on a $25,000 unsecured bond, co-signed by his sister. She and her mother were in the courtroom. Lawler agreed.

The 27-year-old has no criminal history, the judge was told.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office in Seattle said today the cause and manner of death are pending the results of some tests.

Second-degree manslaughter is a class B felony. A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when, with criminal negligence, he or she causes the death of another person, according to state law.

Meagher’s declaration of probable cause filed in court offers information from interviews with the mother and the son; nothing from the father:

When Reserve Officer Ron Myer responded to an aid call from Cathy to the Seasons Motel on 200 block of Westlake Avenue that night – at 10:27 p.m., according to the police chief, or just after midnight according to Meagher – he found an adult male laying on the sidewalk.

Officer Myer performed CPR until an aid crew arrived. Michael was taken to Morton General Hospital and then airlifted to Harborview.

According to Travis’s statement to police, his parents had gone to a friends house somewhere on U.S. Highway 12. His mother left his father there, but then was arrested – he thought for a DUI but court documents say for so-called physical control under the influence – and her car was impounded.

Cathy called home in Vader and asked her daughter Shannon to come pick her up. Shannon asked her brother to do it. Before Travis left, his father arrived, having gotten a ride home from the friend.

Travis described his father as stumbling down drunk.

Travis told the police chief that when they arrived to the motel, his parents began to argue and then the three shoves occurred.

Cathy told the police chief she was intoxicated that night, that both she and her husband had been drinking.

She said she remembered being either hit or pushed by her husband and falling backwards. She said her son stepped up and pushed his father who then fell down. When interviewed earlier at the hospital by Trooper Jason Hicks, Cathy said her son either hit or pushed her husband.

She said she didn’t realize her husband was hurt when she told he son to go home. But then, she said, she realized Michael was not responding so she called 911.

“Cathy said she believed her son’s actions were in defense of her,” Meagher wrote. “She didn’t believe Travis intended to hurt his father.”

Travis told the police chief he left not knowing his father seriously hurt. His car broke down as he got close to home, so he walked to his uncle’s home to stay the night, he said.

His sister phoned there about 3:30 a.m. looking for her brother, saying the police were looking for him.

Travis and his uncle went to the Lewis County Jail to talk with law enforcement, and was arrested.

Travis Myers is scheduled to be back in Lewis County Superior Court on Dec. 6.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Vader man is jailed today after stepping in between his parents during a fight in front of a Morton motel, which ended when his father suffered a serious head injury and then subsequently died, according to the Morton Police Department.

Travis M. Myers, 27, was arrested after the Tuesday night incident; his father Michael K. Myers, 52, passed away on Thursday at a Seattle hospital, according to Chief Dan Mortensen.

“There was some kind of argument between between the mother and the father, apparently a physical altercation,” Mortensen said. “The son stepped in, pushed the father. He fell to the sidewalk and struck his head.”

An officer called about 10 p.m. to the scene on the 200 block of Westlake Avenue did CPR with help from a trooper and the father was transported to Harborview Medical Center, according to the chief.

Michael K. Myers passed away on Thanksgiving Day, Mortensen said.

The family is from Vader and the men had come to the Seasons Motel to pick up the mother who had taken a room there after her arrest by a trooper for a reason the chief didn’t disclose.

The son was arrested on Wednesday for second-degree assault, but the prosecutor will be evaluating the appropriate charge given the death, according to Mortensen.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer has concluded a sheriff’s deputy’s fatal shooting of a Napavine man earlier this month along state Route 6 near Boistfort was justified.

Gregory S. Kaufman

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Matt Wallace was placed on administrative leave after the Nov. 1 encounter in which 64-year-old Gregory S. Kaufman died.

In a letter released Wednesday by Meyer describing his legal analysis to the lead investigator in the case, Meyer outlines a scenario similar to what the sheriff’s office has already said: Deputy Wallace stopped to assist a parked motorist, who he found was suicidal and who subsequently exited his vehicle and advanced upon him with a knife.

Kaufman was struck by two bullets as Wallace retreated, apparently backing up toward the highway in the dark.

Meyer writes the deputy had no other choice:

“When the legal standard is applied to the facts at hand, it is clear that Deputy Wallace was justified when he used deadly force against Gregory Kaufman.”

According to the document, Kaufman was arrested two days prior for alleged misdemeanor assault of his girlfriend, Vicky L. Henthom and a no contact order was put in place.

A Chehalis police officer contacted Kaufman by phone the evening of Oct. 31, asking Kaufman to come to the police department to discuss a violation of the order; because Kaufman had left a note for his girlfriend on her car, according to the document.

Kaufman never appeared at the police station, Meyer writes.

The deadly encounter at a large gravel turnout just east of the South Fork Chehalis RIver Bridge later that night lasted five minutes, according to Meyer.

Meyer gives the following account:

The deputy, alone on patrol, approached the driver’s side door of the car and found Kaufman sitting in the reclined passenger seat.

Deputy Wallace spoke to Kaufman through a tinted, fogged up window and asked Kaufman if he was okay. Kaufman indicated he was fine and just had a nose bleed.

Deputy Wallace seeing cut marks and dried blood on Kaufman’s wrist as well as blood stains on his abdomen – but no blood on his mustache – said he didn’t believe him and asked if he’d been cutting himself.

Kaufman nodded yes, then turned his head and pointed to a neck wound, prompting the deputy to ask 911 dispatchers to send aid.

The deputy asked Kaufman to unlock the door, which he did.

With the door open, the two spoke. Kaufman became emotional, said he’d left a note for Vicky and was concerned about violating the no contact order.

The deputy tried to reassure him he was only concerned about getting him help.

Wallace asked Kaufman where the knife was. Kaufman reached to his right and brought up a knife with a five-inch blade.

Wallace asked him to place it on the dashboard and at first it appeared he would comply.

Then Kaufman looked at the knife, looked at Wallace and then reached over to open the passenger door and got out with the knife in his hand.

Wallace drew his weapon and told him to drop the knife, but Kaufman began to advance on the deputy, with the point of the knife aimed at the deputy.

Wallace repeatedly told Kaufman to drop the knife; Kaufman did not respond but continued to advance, having walked around the rear of his car.

Wallace radioed dispatch to say the man was coming at him with a knife, continued to retreat toward state Route 6.

Then – at 12:16 a.m. – Wallace fired two shots. Kaufman immediately fell to the ground.

Noticeably absent from the narrative are descriptors of Kaufman’s movements, such as “lunged” or “charged” which the sheriff’s office reported in its initial account that morning.

Meyer’s document places Kaufman about 20 feet from his car and Deputy Wallace about 35 feet from the car when he fired his weapon.

The autopsy found a bullet wound to the abdomen, a fatal bullet wound to the head and superficial cuts on the side of his neck and on one wrist. A notepad found on the car seat contained a document titled “Last will and testament.”

Meyer’s information comes primarily from an investigation conducted by the Regional Sheriff’s Critical Incident Investigation Team. The group is made up of deputies from the surrounding counties of Thurston, Pacific, Mason and Grays Harbor and the Washington State Patrol.

Thurston County Sheriff’s detective Cameron Simper was the lead investigator.

Wallace, 37, has been with the sheriff’s office for nine years. Prosecutor Meyer notes he is authorizing the return of Wallace’s duty weapon to him.

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said on Wednesday evening she did not know when Deputy Wallace would be back at work.

Last year, when Deputy Matt McKnight fatally shot a citizen, an internal investigation was not completed until a week after the prosecutor completed his review of the outside investigation.
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Read Prosecutor Meyer’s letter detailing his investigative conclusions, here