Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The man hit and killed yesterday morning by a freight train in downtown Centralia has been identified as a 48-year-old resident of Hildale, Utah.

Mathew P. Johnson had been staying with a friend in Centralia since May, according to the Lewis County Coroner’s Office.

Police examine front of train on Wednesday

The coroner’s office has concluded Johnson intentionally allowed himself to get hit by a train. He was involved in an argument with a female friend just hours earlier and left after making statements which led her, in hindsight, to believe he may have intended to hurt himself, according to Chief Deputy Coroner Carmen Brunton and the Centralia Police Department.

Aid and police were called after the northbound train hit Johnson – who was walking on the tracks between Cherry and Plum street – at 4:41 a.m. yesterday.

The train, which was traveling 40 mph in an area posted with a maximum speed of 50 mph, sounded its whistle and went into an emergency brake application, according to Gus Melonas, a spokesperson for BNSF. It was pulling another locomotive and 78 cars loaded with freight containers from Chicago to Seattle on the double main line, Melonas said.

Police detective Pat Beall said yesterday morning it appeared the man saw the train and didn’t make any effort to move off the tracks.

Fifty passenger and freight trains travel on those tracks each day, according to Melonas.

Johnson doesn’t have any family here, but he leaves behind 18 children in Utah, Brunton said.

•••

Read yesterday’s news story, “Update: Train kills man on tracks in Centralia this morning“

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Too much alcohol and women “running off their mouths” led to a free for all brawl at a Mossyrock tavern leaving one man with broken ribs.

Donald Sampson, 46, was in court this week following Friday night’s melee at the Pioneer Tavern.

“I was at the bottom of a pile of people and getting punched in every direction,” Sampson said after the brief court hearing on Tuesday.

“There were four of us and 15 of them,” said his girlfriend, Robyn Schiefelbein.

Mossyrock Reserve Police Officer Rebecca Sutherland said yesterday it wasn’t actually quite that many people involved in the fighting but described in court documents one woman grabbing Schiefelbein by the hair and both women going to the ground, pulling each other’s hair.

Multiple other subjects attempted to pull the women apart, “with most of them ending up rolling on the ground,” Sutherland is quoted as saying in charging documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court.

Sampson was charged Tuesday with second-degree assault. Charging documents allege he struck a 40-year-old man in the head with a two-by-four. His was the only arrest Friday night.

The unemployed former natural gas line driller was released from jail Sunday on $20,000 bail.

Charging documents offer the following summary: It happened outside the back door of the bar around 11 p.m. on Friday. The bar owner and another man were escorting the couple and two of their friends out after complaints they were disorderly and picking fights. Other patrons followed the men in helping the foursome leave.

The couple, originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, described the scene in the East Lewis County drinking establishment as one that arose in part because they’re not “locals”. They moved to Mossyrock about three months ago to stay with friends, and were thinking about permanently relocating there, they said.

“I know small towns,” Schiefelbein said. “You wanna talk about small towns, I’m from a small town.”

The 44-year-old admitted they were drunk and that she was antagonizing another women at the bar.

“It started with girls, and girls running off our mouths,” she said.

Sampson, who said he has two cracked ribs, walked gingerly to and from the defense table in Judge Nelson Hunt’s Chehalis courtroom late Tuesday afternoon. He is expected to return next week for his arraignment.

Judge Hunt had noted it might be a “third-strike” case, as Sampson has two prior felonies – robbery first and assault second. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Steve Scott said it wasn’t clear if the convictions were too far in the past to apply to the law.

That talk made Sampson nervous. He said those things happened some 20 years ago, when he was younger.

“I’ve been in trouble before, I don’t want no trouble,” he said. “I try to stay away from it.”