Lewis County Sirens.com

Sabrina Kostick snapped this photo with her phone this morning of the bus and house at the corner of Southwest 13th Street and Southwest McFadden Avenue in Chehalis.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

This was updated at 7 p.m.

CHEHALIS – Police say they don’t know what caused a Twin Transit bus to crash into a Chehalis house this morning.

No passengers were onboard and nobody was injured, but the bus and the home sustained significant damage, according to authorities.

However, it was a close call for Mei Liu, who had gotten up very early and gone upstairs to stay up with her colicky grandchild, according to a family friend. Her bed is in the downstairs corner that was struck, he said.

“Luckily she wasn’t sleeping in her bed, she would have been under all that debris,” Matt Howard said.

Aid and police called at about 7:30 a.m. to Southwest 13th Street near William Avenue said the bus had been traveling eastward. It plowed through a fence and the yard before striking the split-level home.

Chehalis Police Department detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said initial indications are it was probably a medical issue with the driver and not anything mechanical with the vehicle.

“He said he was turning left and the next thing he knows is he was hitting the house,” McNamara said. “Something happened. He can’t explain it and we can’t explain it.”

Brickwork was knocked off the building and the wall pushed in, a little bit, McNamara said.

Twin Transit General Manager Ernie Graichen said the driver is a 15-veteran with an “excellent record.”

The driver was checked out and appeared to be fine, Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Kevin Curfman said.

However, he was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital to be checked out and for a post-accident drug test, according to Graichen. The driver’s name was not released.

Forty-four-year-old Hieu Duong said he was brushing his teeth when he felt a jolt.

“Suddenly the house moved, like somebody put a bomb outside,” he said.

It scared his children, he said, but the main thing is no one was injured, especially his mother-in-law.

“She’s lucky,” his wife Liu Li said.

“She might not (have made) it,” he said.

The couple, who own the South Pacific Bistro nearby, were expecting a contractor tomorrow to estimate the damage.

The 15-seat bus was towed to a repair facility.

Twin Transit will conduct an investigation, Graichen said.

McNamara said he didn’t know if the driver would be cited.

Plywood now covers the corner of the Hieu Duong and Liu Li's home in Chehalis.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A Randle taxidermist is expected in court this week to face charges in the March homicide of a 58-year-old welder from Federal Way.

Erik R. Massa, 43, of Randle, was charged yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court with second-degree murder, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Guy LaFontaine

A relative, Guy W. LaFontaine, had gone to Randle to go fishing but ended up on March 13 at Morton General Hospital with two broken eye sockets and other injuries. LaFontaine died the following morning.

Deputies arrested Massa later that day, but he was released from jail three days later, with prosecutors telling a judge they did not yet have enough evidence to charge him.

Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher initially charged Massa last week with first-degree assault, but said today a review of the forensic evidence prompted him to upgrade the charge.

LaFontaine died from blunt force injuries to his head, torso and extremities, according to information from his autopsy. He had a shoe print on his head, according to charging documents.

Detectives found a broken shotgun with blood on it in an empty silo next to Massa’s shop, according to charging documents.

LaFontaine worked at Todd Shipyards in Seattle as a welder.

Charging documents give the following account of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office investigation:

A deputy interviewed LaFontaine’s wife Gail on March 13. Her husband said he was going to go fishing near River Ranch Road in Randle.

She got a call from him, in which he said he had been beat up and he thought he was going to die. She found him on a road, picked him up and took him to Morton General Hospital.

Deputy Matt McKnight who responded to the hospital, was told LaFontaine had substantial wounds about his face and arm and told a nurse he was in extreme pain. He also had a broken arm and a bullet in his arm with an apparent fresh entry wound. (Meagher said today it turned out to be a wound from years earlier)

He was not cooperative with law enforcement.

At 3:45 a.m., the hospital advised McKnight they couldn’t keep LaFontaine in his bed and they were releasing him.

LaFontaine’s wife took him to St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way. He was pronounced dead there. Deputies learned of his death from the Federal Way Police Department.

At 8 a.m. that morning, sheriff’s detective Matt Wallace went to the 1,100 block of U.S. Highway 12 where Massa has a home and taxidermy shop. Wallace was looking for LaFontaine’s car.

He found what appeared to be blood on the car’s right door and then a dent on the right passenger door of a Nissan pickup there. Also, on the Nissan’s door, Wallace found “red liquid” with what appeared to be hair matted in it.

Meagher said he believed the two men were related by marriage, but isn’t sure exactly the details.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled LaFontaine’s death a homicide.

Detectives spoke with a man who said he spoke with Massa that morning.

Massa’s father-in-law, Don Roberts who is also Gail’s ex-husband, said to a detective Massa told him LaFontaine had been walking around the taxidermy shop with a shotgun, according to charging documents.

Massa has been summoned to the courthouse in Chehalis at 4 p.m. on Friday.

Meagher said he hasn’t been arrested, but his lawyer Joseph Mano will bring him in.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Crime in Centralia increased at disturbing levels last year, with property crimes up almost 44 percent, Centralia Police Chief Bob Berg reported yesterday.

The crime rate in Lewis County’s largest city was the highest it’s been in five years, according to Berg.

The chief attributes the rise partly to to a poor economy.

“The condition of our local economy and the release of known criminals back into our community no doubt contributed to the increase,” Berg wrote in a news  release.

The figures come from the preliminary crime statistics compiled for the Washington State Association of Sheriff’s and Police Chiefs as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The chances of a resident being a victim of a property crime last year was almost 8 percent.

Garage and storage shed burglaries accounted almost exclusively for the sharp increase in burglaries last year, according to Berg.

“The police department continues to work these crimes as an emphasis of the anti-crime team, along with their street level drug enforcement efforts,” Berg wrote.

He notes that in 2009, the city experienced one of the lowest crime rates since uniform reporting was implemented 50 years ago, but all those gains were wiped out last year.

The overall crime rate in Centralia went up by 41.1 percent last year, compared with the year before. But property crime increased by 43.7 percent and violent crime only 13.6 percent.

Berg’s numbers show:
• Theft: up 52.9 percent (from 550 incidents to 841)
• Burglary: up 39.7 percent (from 151 to 211)
• Felony assault: up 38 percent (from 50 to 69)

Some offenses declined or were unchanged:
• Rape (down 35 percent)
• Murder and robbery (unchanged)
• Motor vehicle theft (down 1.5 percent)
• Arson: (down 53 percent)

As a department, they are frustrated with the marked increase, Berg wrote.

On the brighter side, he notes that over time, the trend is still downward, the chances of resident being a victim of a violent crime is less than 1 percent, and the department’s clearance rate for crimes improved by 3.3 percent over the previous year.

Berg writes the department continues to work cooperatively with neighboring law enforcement agencies and neighborhood groups to address the challenges of drugs and crime, but asks for the public’s help.

“Preventing crime is a community responsibility, he writes.

His appeal to the public: Secure your home and valuables, and report suspicious activity to the police.

UCR rate 2001 - 2010 Centralia