Lewis County Sirens.com

Attorneys review an order allowing analysis of trace evidence, a spot so small the entire sample will be consumed. Counterclockwise beginning in front are Brad Meagher, James Dixon, Rick Cordes and Roger Hunko.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The state crime lab found a spot of what might be blood on clothing believed to belong to murder suspect Ryan J. McCarthy, but it’s so small that if they test it, there won’t be anything left for a defense expert to conduct its own analysis.

Ryan J. McCarthy

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher filed a motion last week asking a judge to allow the DNA test, and allow the defense to have its own expert present when it’s done.

McCarthy, 29, and John Allen Booth Jr., 31, are former prison cell mates charged in the August 21 shootings inside a Salkum-Onalaska area home that left three people dead and one woman seriously wounded.

The pair are charged with murder and extortion in connection with the deaths of David J. West Sr. 52, his son David J. West Jr., 16, and Tony E. Williams, 50, of Randle, at the West’s home. Booth is also charged with the attempted murder of 51-year-old Denise Salts who lived there.

McCarthy’s wife, according to charging documents, told detectives that on Aug. 21, her husband showed up at her workplace with a bag containing the clothes he had been wearing when she picked him up in Centralia about 2:30 that morning. She said she threw it into a dumpster. It was recovered by law enforcement, according to charging documents.

John A. Booth Jr.

Meagher and lawyers for the defendants went before Judge Richard Brosey this week to discuss the proposed DNA test.

Six jail officers guarded the two defendants in the small fourth-floor courtroom in Chehalis during the proceedings on Wednesday afternoon.

The test will essentially consume all the trace evidence, Meagher told the judge.

McCarthy’s attorney, Rick Cordes, said he could bring in his own expert while it’s done. Brosey agreed with the arrangement.

Brosey also signed an order Wednesday allowing Booth’s fiancee Shawna Trent to get back her computer and an iPod seized by detectives.

Booth’s attorney, James Dixon, then asked the judge to lift a prohibition against any contact between Booth and Trent. She is listed as a witness in the case.

She is a longtime girlfriend of Booth, he told the judge. They consider themselves married, he said.

The couple underwent a religious marriage ceremony in June and had a date set for this month to do a civil ceremony.

Dixon noted a similar allowance was made for McCarthy and his wife, although she too is a witness.

Meagher opposed the request for visitation at the jail.

Brosey said he would allow telephone contact, as all phone calls from the jail are recorded. And he said he would allow visits, which are conducted through a video system in which inmates and their visitors are not ever in the same room.

The visits will have to be recorded and there can be no conversation about the case, the judge said.

A trial date has not yet been set for Booth, a former Onalaska resident.

Attorneys have a deadline at the end of March to file a “notice for special proceedings”. Defense attorneys are compiling a collection of information looking to show why the death penalty should not be sought for Booth.

McCarthy’s trial is scheduled for the week of April 18.

Both men have pleaded not guilty.
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Read recent stories on the case:
“News brief: Springtime trial set for one defendant in triple homicide” from Thursday Nov. 18, 2010

“Attorneys ask for more time on decision about seeking death penalty” from Wednesday Oct. 20, 2010

John A. Booth Jr. next to his attorney in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon as participants wait for the judge to enter.

Ryan J. McCarthy, in the jury box, talks with his lawyer before proceedings begin on Wednesday.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A man federal authorities are calling an “enforcer” in a drug ring accused of distributing highly pure methamphetamine in Cowlitz and Lewis counties was sentenced today to 10 years in prison.

Michael J. Waddington, 24, of Silver Lake, was arrested in June. His co-defendants in the case include Toledo residents Erica Deann Lewis and Anthony Wayne Reisbeck, along with Randy Scott Chalupa of Longview.

The Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Narcotics Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration began investigating members of the group in 2009. Information revealed the four were selling pound quantities of meth in and around Kelso, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

“Waddington admitted one of his roles in the drug organization was to collect drug debts,” the office stated in a news release today.

In asking for a significant prison term, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Backhus noted for the court Waddington illegally possessed multiple firearms, including rifles, pistols and a sawed-off shotgun, according to the news release. He also has previous convictions for assault and then threatening a witness in the assault case, according to the news release.

Waddington pleaded guilty in October and was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, and being armed with a firearm in connection with a drug crime. Judge Robert J. Bryan imposed the sentence.

The other defendants are set to be sentenced early in 2011.
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Read the June 9, 2010 news story “News Brief: Alleged meth ring defendants handed over to feds” here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The man charged with having pounds of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin when he was captured following a high-speed chase in Chehalis a year ago pleaded guilty today in a compromise deal because the main witness against him is Robbie Russell.

Robert John Maddaus Jr.

Robert John Maddaus Jr., 41, was in Lewis County Superior Court this afternoon with his attorney Ken Johnson.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher told the judge he reduced the charges to possession of each of three drugs.

“The intent element here, I was going to use Robbie Russell for that, and that just isn’t going to happen,” Meagher said.

After the two men were apprehended by Lewis County sheriff’s deputies in November 2009, detectives found in the car a backpack containing two and a half pounds of methamphetamine, nearly a half pound of cocaine and almost one-third pound of heroin, according to charging documents.

Maddaus – who is a Rochester resident, according to court documents – was initially charged with possession of each of the three drugs with intent to deliver, as well as unlawful possession of a firearm.

Robert Shawn Russell

The red Corvette belonged to Russell and it was Russell who was driving, according to Johnson. An argument could have been made at trial the drugs belonged to Russell, Johnson said.

Russell had been contacted by law enforcement and made arrangements to turn Maddaus over to them, Johnson said.

The attorney called the circumstances of that night “very peculiar”. Despite Russell’s agreement, he sped away when deputies tried to pull him over, he said.

“Back then, Russell was working with us,” Meagher said after today’s court hearing. But after that, he committed a bunch of crimes, he said.

Earlier this month, Russell was sent to prison with a six-year sentence.

“It’s not like we can count on Robbie Russell coming back and cooperating, things have changed,” Meagher said.

Judge James Lawler sentenced Maddaus today to one year and a day for each of the three counts. They will be served concurrently.

Lawler then signed an order transporting Maddaus back to Thurston County, where he is set for trial next week for first-degree murder in the case of a man found handcuffed and shot to death on an Olympia street in November of last year.