Lewis County Sirens.com

Current Lewis County Sheriff's Office detective Sgt. Dusty Breen

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Even as the coroner’s inquest in Ronda Reynolds’ death has unfolded, the current detective’s supervisor at the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office has been taking notes on “things to follow up on.”

Detective Sgt. Dusty Breen said learning the name of the first arriving emergency medical technician to the Toledo home almost 13 years ago was new to him and just last week he talked with her.

When Breen testified yesterday, he spoke of he and his people looking at possible new leads and the frustration of learning all the physical evidence was gone.

It’s like a puzzle with a lot of pieces missing, he said.

“A lot of it came down to the initial investigation,” Breen said.

Belle Williams, the longtime director of evidence at the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, said yesterday evidence was destroyed or returned in the year following the death, after the request of the then-detective sergeant. More evidence was cleaned out again in 2002, she said.

She was in the midst of implementing a new procedure requiring written authorization.

“At that point, all we could do was stop it,” Williams said.

The seven-day inquest in Chehalis into the former trooper’s December 1998 death is concluding, with jurors scheduled to return to the courtroom with their decision at 4 p.m. today.

The four women and one man who deliberated yesterday afternoon and again this morning were asked to determine if the death was suicide, homicide or something else.

They are using the standard of a preponderance of evidence or “basically 51 percent, according to Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod.

McLeod told jurors he’d like it to be unanimous, but a majority agreeing would be sufficient.

If they return with a conclusion of homicide, he has said he would send them back to decide who they believe killed Reynolds. Under state law, if the jury names someone, the coroner is required to issue an arrest warrant.

What Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer would do in the situation, he has said he doesn’t know.

The inquest jurors have heard testimony from those who believe Reynolds’ death was suicide and those who think murder.

The 33-year-old was found dead on the floor of a small walk-in closet, with a bullet in her head and covered up by a turned-on electric blanket.

A new story inquest jurors heard yesterday was from a man Reynolds’ mother, Barb Thompson, had learned might have been at the Reynolds’ house the night before the death.

He lived with Joshua Williams, an individual who claimed one of the teenage friends of the Reynolds boys shot Reynolds, but later recanted his story.

Richard Melton told Breen of a time Williams borrowed his truck and then returned it spotlessly clean, Breen recounted. Melton denied ever being inside the Toledo house, according to Breen.

Detective Bruce Kimsey talks with Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer and Sheriff Steve Mansfield in the inquest courtroom during a break. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Present day members of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office testified yesterday they were unable to confirm Joshua Williams’ story of a teenage party at the Reynolds’ Toledo home and his allegation Ronda Reynolds was shot and killed by one of the young people there.

Three sheriff’s detectives told of following up in 2009 and 2010 on new information in the case of the Dec. 16, 1998 death of the former trooper. They spoke of interviewing about a dozen individuals, many of them who were teenagers at the time.

“I have the feeling Mr. Williams may have been making some things up, to put it bluntly,” detective Kevin Engelbertson said yesterday morning.

Their testimony came as the coroner’s inquest in Chehalis into Reynolds’ death is wrapping up.

Reynolds was was found dead on the floor of a small walk-in closet, with a bullet in her head and covered up by a turned-on electric blanket.

Former sheriff’s detective Jerry Berry testified at length last week about a series of jail house meetings he had with Williams in which he was told Williams and others were at the Reynolds’ boys’ house, hanging out, playing video games and partying the night before the death.

Berry continued working with Barb Thompson – mother of Ronda Reynolds – after he left the sheriff’s office and then worked as a private investigator.

Berry was told Reynolds’ husband, Ron Reynolds, was home only briefly that night and left the house.

Engelbertson testified he knew Williams from his previous longtime work as a drug detective, and he had many times before given information in attempts to get out of jail and found to be unreliable.

Engelbertson spoke of contacting Jason Collins, who Williams implicated, and said Collins denied ever being at the Toledo house and said he’d do anything detectives wanted to clear his name.

Detectives yesterday recounted, as Berry previously has, that Williams’ story had grown more elaborate with each interview.

Detective Bruce Kimsey said yesterday Williams seemed to be extracting details from Berry’s questioning, and giving back that same information.

Kimsey and detective Jamey McGinty both testified they think the death was suicide.

Inquest jurors yesterday also heard briefly from former Chief Criminal Deputy Joe Doench, who said he had administrative overview of sheriff’s office field operations in 1998.

Doench, who said he was at the scene briefly but didn’t directly supervise the death investigation, told the courtroom he considers it a case of suicide.

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said yesterday he has two witnesses testifying today, and then five members of the inquest jury will adjourn to deliberate.