Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A Portland consultant visited by members of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office less than a month after Ronda Reynolds death testified on Friday it had all the earmarks of suicide.

Ronda Reynolds

Rod Englert gave his opinion to lead detective Jerry Berry and detective Sgt. Glade Austin after viewing limited evidence, he said, that included photographs of the scene, a pillow with its case, a green plaid electric blanket and a gun.

Englert, testifying by telephone in the coroner’s inquest, said he has 48 years in law enforcement and specializes in crime scene reconstruction and blood pattern analysis.

Much of the information he shared Friday was based on pictures of Reynolds’ body laying on its left side on the floor of the closet in her Toledo home on Dec. 16, 1998.

More specifically, his conversation was based on five pages of notes he took on Jan. 13, 1999. On Friday afternoon, Englert said he hadn’t received from the coroner’s office copies of the photos from the film he gave Berry and Austin after the visit.

Englert described various reasons for his conclusion her body was not moved after she was shot, primarily viewing the blood on her neck and face, noting gravity and that he’d been told a pillow was said to have been covering her head.

He didn’t see signs of a struggle, he testified.

The trajectory of the bullet would be consistent with the position she was in, Englert said.

Englert had an explanation for those who wondered with firearms expert Marty Hayes how Reynolds possibly could have held the gun to her own head with the wound path that resulted.

It’s a fallacy to assume a right handed person would always shoot themselves with their right hand, he said.

“Most often what happens in cases like this is the barrel of the weapon is held with the right hand and you just reach up and pull the trigger with the left thumb,” he said.

One key observation is the site of the bullet’s entry is a classic site, Englert said. If Reynolds pulled the trigger, she went to a classic site, her right temple area, he said.

The gun and her hands were positioned the way he would have expected, he said. He would have been suspicious if the weapon was actually in her hand, he said.

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod noted to Englert he hadn’t seen a photo of the body and gun together, and that he’s heard varying testimony throughout the inquest on where the gun was positioned before it was removed.

The consultant said he looked at the .32 caliber Rossi handgun, and was told a fiber had been removed from it that was similar to the blanket.

He examined the pillow itself and found it had no defects, but said the pillow case – very near its edge – had a bullet defect and what appeared to be powder burns, he said.

On the top edge of the electric blanket, he observed blood stains and what also might be powder stains, he said.

Englert noted his experience in what he said were hundreds and hundreds of suicides: They go to a secluded place, maybe out in the woods or in a closet, getting under something, he said.

“I’ve seen several of them in closets,” he said.

There’s not evidence, that he saw, someone else could have done it without her being aware, he said.

“Could she have been asleep? It’s possible,” Englert said.

He added before his testimony ended that, according to the literature, 99 percent of all contact gunshot wounds – as was Reynolds – are suicides.

Englert was the final witness in the first week of McLeod’s inquest. His testimony followed the testimony of Barb Thompson, mother of the former trooper, who had just told the inquest jury she was certain her daughter was murdered.

Thompson after the proceedings adjourned, declined two of her friends’ attempts to get her to stay the night in Chehalis with them. She said she wanted to get home to Spokane for the weekend.

“I need some alone time,” Thompson said.

Reflecting just briefly on what she’d just heard in the courtroom, she said: “Rod Englert made some good points. I’ll have to think about it.”

Photo of Ronda Reynolds on floor of closet, without gun or electric blanket, Dec. 16, 1998

Barb Thompson, mother of Ronda Reynolds speaks on the witness stand in Chehalis. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – When Barb Thompson took the witness stand yesterday during the coroner’s inquest into her grown daughter’s death she told those in the courtroom she was certain it was a homicide.

“There is no doubt in my mind, I am 100 percent convinced without a doubt that my daughter was murdered,” Thompson said.

The Spokane mother answered questions for almost an hour and a half about what she has learned since Dec. 16, 1998 when she was told her daughter, 33-year-old Ronda Reynolds, had committed suicide in her Toledo home.

Ronda Reynolds, a former trooper then working security at the Bon Marche, 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.

Ronda Reynolds

Her new husband, Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds, told sheriff’s deputies the marriage was ending and his wife was talking about suicide the day before and through the night. Ron Reynolds said he woke up around 6 a.m. and realized she was no longer in bed with him, according to previous testimony.

Thompson testified she spoke with her daughter on the telephone twice that night and at first her daughter was going to move out that day, but changed her mind and decided she would leave on her own terms. She was not suicidal, she was upbeat, Thompson said.

Ronda Reynolds purchased an airline ticket to fly to Spokane the following afternoon.

“She was going to come home, spend some time with family and make some decisions and plans,” Thompson said.

Some 30 witnesses have been heard in Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod’s inquest in Chehalis as its first week came to a close.

Thompson described how she went to Toledo and her conversations with the son-in-law she was meeting in person for the first time.

Ron Reynolds told her she couldn’t have any of her daughter’s personal belongings because he planned to sell them to cover debt he blamed on his wife, Thompson testified.

She asked him about a funeral, and he said he said he didn’t know because he didn’t have any money. She asked if she could bring her daughter’s body back to Spokane, and cremate her, she said.

“He said he didn’t care as long as he didn’t have to pay for it,” Thompson said nearly breaking into sobs on the stand.

He told her she left him bankrupt, and never once did he say he missed her, Thompson said.

Thompson testified Ron Reynolds told her how he discovered a life insurance premium his wife hadn’t payed, that he thought it was $300,000 and was going to put it in the mail that afternoon.

Thompson has spent the years since poring through records, working with private investigators and an attorney to find out for sure what happened to her daughter. It always comes back to homicide, she said on Friday.

Neither Ron Reynolds nor his three sons are taking the opportunity to testify during the proceedings, as they invoked their fifth amendment right against self incrimination.

Thompson spoke of one of Ron Reynolds’ teenage sons she believed had a very deep hatred for her daughter, after a previous incident in which she was told he peeked at Ronda Reynolds in the shower, and she jumped out and tackled him.

He went into a rage and threatened to kill her daughter, Thompson said. The sheriff’s office was called and he had to go live with his mother, Thompson said.

When asked yesterday under oath what Thompson believed could be a motive, if indeed her daughter was killed, Thompson spoke of the Reynolds’ boys and their teenage friends said to have been hanging out and partying at the house that night, one of which told a private investigator Ron Reynolds left the house that evening.

Thompson said she believes there were several individuals at the house that night, including an older Reynolds’ boy who is not named in any of the police reports as having been present. She’s been told by three people Micah Reynolds’ truck was there, she testified.

Thompson spoke of then-17-year-old Jonathan Reynolds.

“I’ve been told he talked about ways he’d like to see her killed,” she said.

•••