By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Olympian reports a 4-year-old Rochester boy apparently shot himself in the arm at a home on Guava Street on Friday afternoon.
News reporter Jeremy Pawloski writes the child was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with a wound that started at his wrist an ended at his elbow.
Read more here
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The (Longview) Daily News reports collective medical marijuana gardens will be limited to two commercially zoned locations near Interstate 5 in Castle Rock.
News reporter Barbara LaBoe writes the new zoning rules mandate the gardens must be secured and may not be visible from public streets.
Read more here
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The (Longview) Daily News writes once again yesterday about the Walter family who died in March in their Winlock home in what authorities called a murder-suicide, however, like the Daily News’ November follow up on the case, they report only that evidence is still being analyzed by experts to try to learn details about what occurred.
Rodney Walter, 57, Cathy Lee Walter, 65 and their 18-year-old son Devon Walter, along with their family pets, were found dead of apparent gunshots at their two-story log cabin on the 300 block of Frost Road.
The Lewis County Coroner’s Office concluded the deaths of the Winlock father and son were homicide and the mother shot herself.
Read reporter Tony Lystra’s news item here.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Jurors have a verdict in John Allen Booth’s triple murder trial in Lewis County Superior Court.
They left the courtroom to begin deliberations at noon and finished by 2 p.m.
Verdict details to come.
John Allen Booth Jr. relaxes after the jury left the courtroom to begin deliberations
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Gunshot survivor Denise R. Salts, right, stands as the jury leaves the courtroom at noon today to begin deliberating.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Seattle Times reports hundreds of people die each year and more often than any others, the poor pay the price as the state cuts costs by steering patients to an inexpensive narcotic painkiller it insists is safe.
Two Seattle Times reporters write about accidental overdoes of methadone, a drug often prescribed for chronic pain which is described as cheap and also unpredictable.
The Seattle Times comprehensive Sunday story focuses in on a “preferred” drug list that took effect in 2004 for doctors prescribing to those covered under injured workers claims, state workers and Medicaid.
That was the same year complaints began about Toledo’s Dr. Lance Christansen, whose license was taken away over a string of patient deaths primarily attributed by authorities to over-prescribing methadone.
In May, June, August and September of that year, four Lewis County residents died from accidental overdoses of methadone.
Among those who raised alarms about Christiansen, was the state Department of Labor and Industries, sparked by a call from the Lewis County Coroner’s Office about suspicious deaths.
In one of those deaths, the state alleged Christiansen prescribed five to 10 times the appropriate amount.
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Read The Seattle Times story “State pushes drug that saves money, costs lives” from Sunday December 11, 2011, here
Read “Toledo doctor was working on ‘new’ therapy” from June 18, 2005 in The (Centralia) Chronicle, here. (Readers must pay to read unless they subscribe)
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A Lewis County judge yesterday signed an order meaning Steven Moulton of Morton will likely be held indefinitely at Western State Hospital instead of going to trial for an alleged assault of an 8-year-old boy in a public restroom.
At the prosecutor’s request, Moulton was found incompetent to stand trial and the charges were dismissed, according to Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke.
Steven R. Moulton, Lewis County Superior Court in December 2010
They will petition for Moulton to be civilly committed to the state hospital because he is a danger to the community, O’Rourke said.
Moulton is currently in the care of Western State, O’Rourke said.
The then-21-year-old was charged a year ago in connection with a summer 2010 incident in which he allegedly crawled under the closed door of an occupied bathroom stall where a child said he covered his mouth and punched him twice. It happened in Gust Backstrom Park in Morton.
Moulton was charged in Cowlitz County for a similar incident this summer in Castle Rock, and found to be developmentally disabled, a condition that can’t be fixed with medicine, according to O’Rourke.
The Cowlitz County Prosecutor’s Office challenged the finding but were not successful, O’Rourke said.
It’s a permanent condition, O’Rourke said.
“We came to the conclusion whether we like it or not, we’re not going to get the court to find him competent,” O’Rourke said. “Here, we did not challenge the competency finding.”
O’Rourke said in all likelihood, Moulton will be civilly committed and then reviewed every six months to see if he is no longer a danger and might be released.
Moulton had once before in Lewis County been found not competent in a criminal case related to a developmental disability.
His Lewis County cases were dismissed yesterday with prejudice, meaning the prosecutor could refile the charge at a future date.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Firefighters will be joining Santa Claus as he cruises through both Centralia and Chehalis Thursday evening beginning at 6 p.m.
In Chehalis, the so-called Santa Mobile will be traveling its usual annual route starting near Southwest 13th and 16th streets.
Chehalis Firefighter Steve Emrich advises Santa and his helpers will distribute candy canes along with safety information. Donations will be collected for the food bank.
In Centralia, Santa’s sleigh should be found throughout the Edison District until 9 p.m.
There, he and his helpers will be collecting donations of new toys as well as items for the food bank, according to Riverside Fire Authority’s Judith Emler.
The following night, the procession will be repeated in the Fords Prairie area, Emler said.
Chehalis’s Santa Mobile will be out again a week from Thursday, beginning in NW Westside neighborhoods, according to the Chehalis Fire Department.
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