By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Olympian reports a judge for Tenino and Tumwater was issued a reprimand for violating the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct when in September he drove under the influence of alcohol, struck a vehicle and left the scene.
Read news reporter Jeremy Pawloski’s story here
This news story was updated at 5:30 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A plea deal has been reached with one of the two men charged in last summer’s triple slaying near Salkum.
Ryan J. McCarthy, 29, is scheduled to plead guilty next week in Lewis County Superior Court.
Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said today he would not discuss what McCarthy plans to plead to, or what if anything either side offered in exchange.
He is set to go before a judge on Thursday.
The Redmond man and former Onalaska resident John A. Booth Jr. were arrested after four people were found shot – three fatally – inside a home off Gore Road near Salkum last August.
The dead are David West Sr. 52, his son David West Jr., 16, and a friend Tony E. Williams, 50, of Randle. West Sr.’s live-in girlfriend, Denise Salts, 52, survived a gunshot wound to her face.
McCarthy’s lawyer couldn’t be reached immediately for comment this afternoon.
Attorneys brokered a plea deal last week, and yesterday set a date with the judge, but it won’t be final until McCarthy “signs on the dotted line,” Meagher said.
He did say he and Olympia defense attorney Rick Cordes have agreed upon the amount of time they will recommend to the judge that McCarthy serve.
McCarthy was charged with murder as well as attempted extortion. His trial was set for October.
Booth, 32, is scheduled to go to trial on Nov. 7.
He is charged with attempted murder of Salts, second-degree murder of West Sr., first degree murder of David Jr. and Williams, attempted extortion and unlawful possession of a firearm.
The two men are former cell mates. Authorities have said they believe the two men’s Aug. 21 visit to the house was related to a drug debt collection.
Booth’s lawyer, Roger Hunko, said this afternoon he had no reaction to offer about the news.
“I don’t think it means much one way or the other to John,” Hunko said. “Mr. McCarthy is going to have to do what he needs to do.”
•••
Read background on the case:
• “West Sr. pointed shotgun telling pair of ex-cons to leave his house, triggering triple homicide, unsealed court documents allege” from Saturday Sept. 4, 2010, here
• “Unsealed document: More details on Salkum slayings” from Monday Sept. 6, 2010, here
GUN HELD TO NEIGHBOR’S HEAD
• A 67-year-old Centralia man was jailed last night after he reportedly kicked a house guest out by putting a gun to the guest’s head. Police said a couple of friends were visiting at the 1000 block of Elm Street and after an argument ensued, the resident, Donald N. Ordania, held a small caliber pistol on a 58-year-old neighbor. The victim and his friend left and called police about 11 p.m., according to the Centralia Police Department. Ordania was contacted and arrested for first-degree assault, Officer John Panco said.
MORE GRAFFITI ON GARAGES
• Centralia police were called yesterday about gang graffiti found on two more garages; one on the 300 block of North Rock Street and the other on the 400 block of North Oak Street.
THEFT
• Chehalis police were called about 11:20 a.m. yesterday to the 200 block of State Avenue where a woman said she stepped out of her apartment and left the door open, and then discovered someone had gone in an stolen her cell phone.
• A deputy was called yesterday to the 100 block of Wakefield Drive outside Centralia where the resident said sometime between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., somebody went inside and stole two rings according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. The loss is estimated at $500. The sheriff’s office has a suspect in mind, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said this morning.
CAR PROWLS
• Someone threw a rock through the window of a vehicle on the 200 block of state Route 603 west of Chehalis around 2 a.m. yesterday and then stole $200, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
• Centralia police took reports of four car prowls yesterday morning, the first three at the 2500 block of Fords Prairie Avenue and the 2400 block of Leisure Lane. Later in the morning, an officer was called to the 2600 block of Fords Prairie Avenue where somebody had stolen medication from inside a vehicle.
WAYWARD CIGARETTE IGNITES PORCH
• Firefighters were called about 7 p.m. yesterday to the 1500 block of Oxford Avenue in Centralia where a porch had caught fire. It was a very old wooden porch and someone had tossed a cigarette, they thought, into a can, Riverside Fire Authority Capt. Ken Colombo said. Someone had already used a garden hose to put the fire out, Colombo said.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Fire destroyed an Adna area home this afternoon.
Lewis County Fire District 6 was called about 12:50 p.m. to the 100 block of Sunset Drive, off Brockway Road, according to Firefighter-paramedic Tim Kinder.
The single-story house was fully involved in flames when they arrived and fought “pretty much defensively,” Kinder said.
District 6 was joined by members of fire departments from Chehalis, Centralia and Napavine.
Nobody was home, although some pets perished, Kinder said.
Kinder believed two cats and a dog were rescued.
Fire Capt. Ted McCarty of Chehalis Fire Department said two kittens were saved, and seemed to be doing fine.
“They kinda reached in and found them in the foam and rubble, about an hour into it,” McCarty said.
Kinder described the house as gutted. It had been burning for quite awhile before firefighters arrived, he said.
The cause is under investigation.
SUBJECT GIVES BAIL BONDSMAN THE SLIP IN CHEHALIS
• Law enforcement officers converged on Chehalis today after a bail bondsman tried to take a man into custody and the man fled. It began around noon at the Chehalis Avenue apartments on Southwest Third Street when the wanted subject jumped out a second story window and ran, according to Chehalis police. A police dog was called in and conducted a track, but the individual has not been found, Deputy Chief Randy Kaut said. Kaut said he wasn’t sure what the man was being brought in for.
TEEN HURT WHEN HE JUMPS FROM MOVING TRUCK
• A teenager was injured when he leaped from a moving vehicle last night along state Route 506 outside Vader. The Washington State Patrol reported the driver and the 15-year-old boy were arguing when the boy bailed out of the pickup truck; it was traveling about 30 mph. Troopers called about 10:30 p.m. to milepost nine reported he suffered a concussion and cuts and was taken by ambulance to Providence Centralia Hospital. The teen, whose name was not released, lives in Ryderwood, according to the state patrol.
TWO INJURED IN U.S. HIGHWAY 12 WRECK
• A man and a woman were hospitalized after their car plowed into the back of pickup truck stopped on U.S. Highway 12 in Salkum yesterday. Troopers called about 3:10 p.m. found the 1988 Oldsmobile totaled. A Chevrolet pickup driven by a Randle man was waiting to turn onto Kennedy Road, and a GMC pickup driven by a Morton resident was stopped behind him, according to the state patrol. The occupants of the Oldsmobile, Robert J. Costner, 47, of Mossyrock, and Dawn F. Terry, 50, of Morton, both had head and neck pain, according to the investigating officer. He was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital and she was taken to Morton General Hospital, the patrol reported.
GRAFFITI ON GARAGES
• Someone spray-painted graffiti – “South Side 13” – on several garages in the area of the 300 block of North Rock Street in Centralia, a police officer noted about 10 p.m. last night.
WANTED MAN FOUND INSIDE COURTHOUSE
• Deputies found a man wanted for a knife assault earlier this week when he showed up for court yesterday on an unrelated matter. The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office was seeking Travis P. Shive, 25, of Onalaska, after he allegedly jumped a 42-year-old man who confronted him about his driving on Monday near the 600 block of Burchett Road in Onalaska. The victim was kicked in the chest and cut above his eye with a pocket knife, according to the sheriff’s office. Shive was found yesterday afternoon in Lewis County District Court and taken into custody without incident, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said this morning. Shive was released without charges, pending further investigation.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The coroners inquest into the controversial 1998 death in Toledo of former state trooper Ronda Reynolds is back on, tentatively scheduled for mid-October.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod announced this morning an appeal in the case has been put on hold.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod
The state Court of Appeals issued a “stay” on June 20, after hearing from lawyers for the coroner and Barb Thompson, mother of the deceased, according to McLeod.
Their reason, according to McLeod, is to see what the outcome of a coroner’s inquest would be.
McLeod said in a news release the inquest will be held in Lewis County, he will be the presiding officer.
One of McLeod’s first acts after he took office in January was to change Reynolds’ death certificate from suicide to undetermined. Soon afterward, he announced he would hold a coroners inquest; to be conducted in Clark County.
In May, however, he put the inquest on hold, saying he needed to wait for the outcome of the civil case appeal – Thompson vs. Wilson.
A panel of three judges heard from attorneys on both sides on June 16.
Reynolds, 33, was found with a bullet in her head and covered by a turned-on electric blanket on the floor of a closet in the home she shared with her husband of less than a year, Ron Reynolds, in December 1998.
The case was the subject of a judicial review in Lewis County in November 2009 after which a panel of citizens concluded then-Coroner Terry Wilson’s determination that Reynolds’ died of suicide was arbitrary, capricious and incorrect. A judge ordered Wilson to change the manner of death, but Wilson appealed.
The appeal is now on hold, as the judge’s want to see what the outcome of an inquest will be.
•••
See the rules governing the procedures for the coroner’s inquest, here
Sixty-year-old Ronald Brady is handcuffed before being led out of a Chehalis courtroom this morning, following his sentencing.
This news story was updated at 4:58 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A judge rejected Ronald A. Brady’s lawyer’s idea of the Onalaska man remaining free on a bond while his appeal is pending for fatally shooting a suspected burglar and sentenced Brady this morning to just over five years in prison.
Brady, 60, was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in Lewis County Superior Court almost two weeks ago.
At his sentencing today, Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke asked the judge to impose 63 months, the top of the standard sentencing range combined with three mandatory years because a firearm was used.
Defense attorney Don Blair asked the judge to consider just six months in the county jail.
Thomas McKenzie
Judge Nelson Hunt was brief.
The sentence will be 63 months, Hunt said.
“While it’s true a burglary may have been about to be committed, the defendant had many opportunities to do just about anything to avoid this deadly confrontation,” Hunt said. “And in fact, the defendant did what he stated he was going to do.”
Fifty-six-year-old Thomas McKenzie of Morton died the night of April 19, 2010 outside the house Brady owns on the the 2100 block of state Route 508. Brady admitted firing five or six shots with a .22 caliber rifle, three of them toward Thomas McKenzie.
A dozen friends and acquaintances of Brady’s sat behind him this morning in the courtroom in Chehalis. About twice that many took up seats elsewhere in the audience.
Deputy Prosecutor O’Rourke asked the judge to impose the maximum time allowed, 27 months from the top of the standard sentencing range, along with the 36 mandatory months because a gun was used.
“There’s no dispute the jury found this was an intentional act,” O’Rourke told the judge.
The defendant made a decision to go to the property “where he didn’t even live, laying in complete wait in the darkness,” he said.
Brady went outside and fired his gun and kept shooting even after Tom McKenzie began to run, O’Rourke said.
“He admitted eventually, I did shoot him, and hit him,” he said. “He caused this by going offensively outside the garage.”
Lastly, O’Rourke said, there is a victim, a person slain by the defendant on the night in question; a person who did not need to die.
Centralia defense attorney Blair reminded the judge that although a pretrial ruling prevented him from calling the McKenzie’s burglars during the trial, the prosecutor did so during his closing, and so Blair was finally able to do that too.
“I think what’s getting glossed over is what really was going on that night,” Blair told the judge. “The McKenzies were there to burglarize the defendant’s house.”
Brady had been stolen from as many as seven times in the past, he said. The McKenzies showed up on his property uninvited, he said.
Blair described his client as a law-abiding citizen who has done nothing but be cooperative throughout the case.
“If the McKenzies had lived their lives like Ron had lived his, we wouldn’t be here today,” he said.
Blair agreed his client waited inside his own house, and probably was angry, feeling violated.
“And if somebody showed up at my house in the middle of the night, I’d probably start shooting too,” Blair said.
He asked the court to approve a mitigated sentence downward to six months.
About 30 minutes was given to several members of Thomas McKenzie’s family to address the judge before sentencing.
Robert McKenzie, of Morton, spoke briefly.
“My name is Robert McKenzie. Tom is my son,” he said.
Robert McKenzie pointed out Brady acknowledged he’d do the same thing again, and wasn’t sorry for what he did. He’s cold-blooded, the father said.
“This guy, he’s gonna kill again. He says he’s gonna kill again,” he said. “We gotta put him away judge.”
Colleen Wolczak directed many of her words about her brother directly to Brady. She asked him how he could kill and have no remorse.
“You say you’re not sorry my brother is dead,” Wolczak said. “What kind of man is that?”
The Salem, Ore. woman said maybe her brother should not have been at Brady’s property, but he didn’t deserve to die for a burglary. She pointed to her parents in the first row.
“They lost their first-born child, because you were peeved,” she said. “Well, a lot of us get peeved, Mr. Brady, but we don’t kill.”
Patrick McKenzie said he followed the trial regarding his brother in the news from his home in Nevada.
In the civilized world, people don’t wait in a garage and then take the life of someone they judge to be of little virtue, Patrick McKenzie said.
The intruders onto the property could have been a Girl Scout selling cookies, or a plumber showing up on the job, he said.
“Which I am. And I’ve done that, shown up after dark. But I guess I wouldn’t be here if I lived in Lewis County, or next door to Mr. Brady,” he said.
“Our family is hurt, Mr. Brady,” Patrick McKenzie said. “Hurting in ways that cannot be imagined or fathomed by someone who hasn’t lived through it.”
Another brother, John McKenzie of Morton, said he felt the prosecutors did “a real good job” of showing premeditation and intent.
He recounted his understanding of the testimony he heard.
Brady stepped outside his garage with one thing on his mind, and that one thing was to shoot, he said.
“How can he say he feared for his life? My brother was running away from him, running for his life,” John McKenzie said.
He called the defendant an angry man with no respect for human life who took the law into his own hands.
“He showed no mercy, no compassion at all for my brother,” he said. “Tom’s death was not an accident.”
Brady chose, on his attorney’s advice, not to make a statement to the judge.
After Judge Hunt imposed the sentence, and and left the bench, some of Brady’s supporters said they would have liked to speak for their friend.
Terry Schrader, of Centralia, called the case chilling for property owners who want to defend themselves.
Rodger Manecke, of Cinebar, said he was unhappy with verdict, thinking it will make property owners leery and thieves bold.
“I think it send out a big message, this kind of verdict, making people afraid to protect what’s theirs,” Manecke said.
Marvin Woods came from his home in Lacey to be there today.
Brady has been his bridge partner for some 10 years, he said. He even played cards with Brady at the Unity Church in Centralia earlier in the day of the shooting.
I only know Brady is an exceedingly honest man, Woods said.
Woods, who said he had 30 years in the military, said he didn’t like the fact that Brady ended up killing the guy.
“I don’t know what in the world I’d do under those same circumstances,” he said.
The Onalaska man was taken handcuffed out of the courtroom down to the Lewis County Jail.
Brady argued self defense in his trial. He avoided a first-degree murder conviction, and also a conviction of first-degree assault for allegedly firing at Thomas McKenzie’s wife Joanna McKenzie.
A jury of six men and six women took less than three hours on June 24 to find him guilty of second-degree manslaughter.
Until today, the retired bachelor had been free on a $50,000 unsecured appearance bond.
Mothers of Thomas McKenzie's children shared photos of his children. Teresa, Cristy, Anthony, Danielle and Brittney, taken in 2010 at a celebration of life for their father. / Courtesy photo
Thomas McKenzie, right, with his children Anthony, Robert, Stormie, taken about a year before his death. / Courtesy photo
•••
Read “Breaking news: Onalaska murder trial: Guilty of second-degree manslaughter” from Friday June 24, 2011, here
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