Deputy Prosecutor Shane O'Rourke addresses jurors as Ronald Brady's murder trial begins in Lewis County Superior Court
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Prosecutors told jurors yesterday that murder defendant Ronald Brady believed burglars would return to his Onalaska house the night of April 19, 2010 and told his neighbor if they did come back, he planned to shoot them.
Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke told the jury in opening statements it was not a case of self defense; that nobody came through Brady’s garage, broke down a door or crawled through a window.
“Lying in wait in almost total darkness, waiting to trap and kill whoever showed up at his residence that night,” O’Rourke said in his opening statements yesterday morning. “The defendant shot and killed Thomas McKenzie and almost did the same to Joanna McKenzie.”
Ronald Brady
Brady, 60, a retired bachelor, is on trial in Lewis County Superior Court for first-degree murder and first-degree assault.
Fifty-six-year-old Thomas McKenzie of Morton died outside the house Brady owns on the the 2100 block of state Route 508 with a gunshot through his chest.
Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield didn’t arrest Brady, announcing he believed the shooting was justified. His office arrested Joanna McKenzie, wife of Thomas McKenzie, for burglary in connection with their visit to the property that night.
But last autumn, prosecutors filed manslaughter charges against Brady and then upgraded them to murder soon thereafter.
A jury of six men and six women heard from attorneys from both sides yesterday morning and then a handful of witnesses for the prosecution before adjourning at 5 p.m.
Defense attorney Don Blair followed O’Rourke yesterday morning with nearly 30 minutes of an entirely different view of what happened that night.
“A number of things the prosecutor just outlined for you are not true, and, he didn’t tell you the whole story,” Blair said.
Brady, a former computer analyst, was described as beginning that day by doing chores like chopping wood and then leaving to play bridge at a local church.
He returned in the late afternoon and found not that he may have been burglarized, but he found evidence he had been burglarized, Blair said. And it had happened some five occasions prior, Blair told the jury.
Brady has owned the property for years, but after a fire there, moved into the house next-door, and goes to the property regularly, according to Blair.
A deputy came and took a report and Brady did go home and get his shotgun, but the .22 rifle was already at the house, Blair said.
The Centralia defense attorney went on to say:
It was around 10 p.m. and pitch black out.
“So the burglars returned. They shut their lights out and get their flashlights out,” he said.
His client didn’t know who it was and he didn’t know what their intentions were, Blair said.
“What the prosecutor left out is when Ron opened the garage door, the first thing he did, he wanted to shoot out the tires,” Blair said. “He didn’t want the burglars to get away. It wasn’t he wanted to kill someone.”
Brady just saw two lights shining in his face; he feared for his life, Blair said. It’s not clear how many shots he fired, according to Blair.
“I would say it’s a tragedy Tom died and Ron does feel bad about that,” Blair said. “But looking back, I can’t tell you Ron would do it different today”
Joanna McKenzie took the stand at mid-day, answering questions from Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes and Blair.
Joanna McKenzie
Under questioning, the 33-year-old Morton woman said she and husband pulled into the driveway with their headlights turned off and her husband went to knock on the front door.
He returned to the truck, she got out, she said. They both started knocking on the garage door then she went back to the truck and Thomas McKenzie went to the side of the house, she testified.
“A noise, the garage door, got my attention, and then a guy started firing,” she said.
Joanna McKenzie said she heard her husband yell he was shot and saw a person kneeling in the garage.
Nothing was said by the shooter, but “I was screaming something along the lines of ‘stop, what are you doing’,” she testified.
Joanna McKenzie testified that when she took cover behind their truck, she heard the glass in its windshield shot out.
“I believe I was standing at the time, I felt air or something graze my face,” she said.
She said she ran to the road, flagged a vehicle down and called 911.
Not discussed yesterday in any detail was the fact that Joanna McKenzie was convicted last October for attempted burglary from that night. She made a so-called Alford plea, not admitting guilt
The trial resumes this morning and is expected to last all week.
Prosecutors did not say when the neighbor would testify about his or her conversation with Brady.
Defense attorney Don Blair makes opening statements in Ronald Brady's murder trial in Lewis County Superior Court.
Robert McKenzie, 14, spreads some of his father's ashes on Sunday in a rose garden at the church he attends where he lives in Wichita, Kansas. / Courtesy photo by Larry Lane
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