Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Ron Reynolds took a polygraph days after his wife’s death which was inconclusive and another months later that indicated he was being truthful when he said he did not shoot his wife, experts said today.

Ron Reynolds

The elementary school principal called 911 early on the morning of Dec. 16, 1998 and said his wife committed suicide inside their Toledo home

The classification of her death has vacillated between suicide and undetermined ever since.

Today, during the coroner’s inquest into the death of 33-year-old former trooper Ronda Reynolds, a local polygraph examiner testified he reviewed both tests in the autumn of 2001 when the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reopened the case.

Steve Birley, who opened his business after a 30-year-career with the Chehalis Police Department, said he concurred with the findings on both tests.

The examiner who conducted the second test in July 1999, at the behest of Ron Reynolds’ attorney, described to the inquest jurors the questions he asked the Toledo man.

“Did you pull the trigger on the gun that killed your wife?” and “On or about Dec. 15, did you shoot your wife?”

Terry Ball then read from his report: “Based on my polygraph examination, it’s my opinion he was being truthful.”

Ball was asked if such tests are always accurate.

He said 90 percent to 100 percent of the time they are.

“But they’re probably the most accurate method of determining truthfulness or deception,” Ball added.

Ron Reynolds is not taking part in the inquest in Chehalis, as he and his three sons were excused by Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod after asserting the privilege against self incrimination

More later

•••

Meanwhile read more about the inquest:

• “Mother: Ronda Reynolds was murdered by her step-son” from KOMOnews.com on Friday October 14,  2011 at 5:51 p.m. p.m., here

Laura Reynolds was joined at the courthouse by her longtime companion when she testified in the inquest into her son's wife's death. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Although Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds has refused to testify in the coroner’s inquest into his wife’s December 1998 death, his elderly mother took the stand yesterday and spoke of her last contact with her daughter-in-law.

“She called me three times that day,” Laura Reynolds said. “She told me she could not go on living without him.”

Laura Reynolds said she met Ronda Reynolds a short time before  the couple was married, less than a year earlier.

Her daughter in-law- was crying, she said, saying she couldn’t give up her husband to another woman, she loved him so much.

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

The couple were separating and she had purchased a ticket to fly home to her family in Spokane later that day.

As the inquiry in a Chehalis courtroom nears the end of its first week, a similar question has been posed to most of the witnesses by Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod.

Did she ever say she was going to hurt herself? What do you think happened?

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office admits some responsibility in what has come to be known as an error-plagued first investigation.

At the urging of Barb Thompson, the dead woman’s mother, the sheriff’s office requested a well-known New York homicide expert to review the case.

Vernon Geberth was highly critical of their work and their conclusion of suicide.

Geberth concluded it was a staged crime scene, with only one individual interviewed who said they believed she killed herself.

“The only person who stated suicide was the husband, whose gun was used and discovered her body,” Geberth wrote in his report.

Later the same year, then-Sheriff John McCroskey sought another review, from a trio of homicide experts in the state Attorney General’s Office. The case file by then included new interviews conducted by then-detective Sgt. Glade Austin, who supervised the sheriff’s detectives.

George Fox testified yesterday he and his partners at the Attorney General’s office concurred it should be classified as a suicide.

Missing evidence did not and would not alter their findings, Fox said.

Among those who knew Ronda Reynolds and testified was Mark Liburdi.

Their eight year marriage ended a year before her death, Liburdi said.

“Yes I was surprised about the suicide, I remember saying to others, ‘no way’,” Liburdi said.

The woman he called “tough as a pistol” never conveyed such sentiment in words or behavior, he said testifying by telephone.

However, the relationship between the two state troopers was less than close in some ways, according to his testimony. They didn’t mingle their finances and he didn’t learn until after their divorce her medication was for bi-polar disorder, he said.

“Here and now, do you have an opinion, suicide or murder,” Coroner McLeod asked.

“You know, I really don’t know,” Liburdi said. “Sometimes I think no and sometimes I think she could have been killed.

I don’t know. I hope you guys find out”

Barb Thompson, mother of Ronda Reynolds. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Much of today was spent by inquest jurors listening to experts who conducted tests related to Ronda Reynolds’ death.

Joe Upton, handwriting analyst

A handwriting examiner who is a commander at the Lacey Police Department concluded it was more likely than not Ronda Reynolds who wrote the message on her bathroom mirror that then-detective Jerry Berry found appeared to be written with lipstick.

“I love you! Please call me 509-206-4688”

Joe Upton said he looked at several pages of samples authored by both Ronda and Ron Reynolds to make his determination.

Laurie Hull didn’t see it when she was at the house helping Ronda that afternoon.  But it was there in the morning when deputies arrived after the 911 call in which Ron Reynolds said his wife had committed suicide.

The fourth day of  Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod’s inquest in the Dec. 16, 1998 death of the 33-year-old former trooper included testimony from several Washington State Patrol crime lab technicians.

Crime lab technicians described how they found her blood on her finger nails but none when they analyzed water from a drain and a blue wash cloth.

Retired forensic expert Charles H. Vaughn said he found no blood on the sleeves of Ronda Reynolds’ pajamas, but when asked if that was unusual, said that would have depended upon positioning and could possibly have been blocked by the pillow.

A finger print expert checked for prints on the Black Velvet bottle found in the master bedroom and the .32 caliber Smith and Wesson long handgun, plus five live rounds and one spent round.

“No latent impressions were developed for examination,” Jill Arwine told the jurors.

Arwine said it’s not uncommon for people to touch something and leave no print.

Marty Hayes conducted two types of tests for Barb Thompson, mother of Ronda Reynolds, attempting to show some of the findings did not make sense as she was trying to get the sheriff’s office to take another look at the case after it was reviewed by the state Attorney General’s Office in early 2002.

Since the homicide investigators suggested the gun was in her right hand, Hayes conducted recoil tests attempting to replicate where the gun reportedly fell onto her forehead, he told the inquest jury.

With repeated firing of a virtually identical gun, he could not get the firearm to come to rest on the sandbag depicting her head, he said.

“I found their version of what happened was implausible,” Hayes said.

Hayes, who operates Seattle Firearms Academy in Onalaska, also attempted to shed light on how someone 15 feet away, even beyond a closed door might not hear a gun shot.

When he fired six rounds into a sandbag-filled item in the bathroom of his own home, his decibel meter measured between 92 and 101, he said.

To put that in perspective, Hayes measured an alarm clock at 62 decibels, he said.

More later

Firearms expert Marty Hayes demonstrates possible positions of a gun and Ronda Reynolds on the closet floor. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

•••

Read more about the inquest

• “Homicide experts split on Ronda Reynolds’ cause of death” from KOMOnews.com on Thursday October 13,  2011 at 7:15 p.m., here

Read previous stories on the corner’s inquest

• “Coroners inquest: New investigation points to murder” from Thursday October 13,  2011 at 9:11 a.m., here

• “Coroners inquest: Detective reveals staged “suicide” statement from Ronda Reynolds” from Wednesday October 12,  2011 at 8:51 a.m., here

• “Coroners inquest into Ronda Reynolds death: Responders ponder, suicide or homicide” from Tuesday October 11,  2011 at 7:33 a.m., here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Jerry Berry, homicide. Gordon Spanski, suicide. David Bell, homicide. Laurie Hull, don’t know. Catherine Huttula, suicide.

Five witnesses during yesterday’s session of the coroner’s inquest were asked what their opinion is now about the December 1998 death of former trooper Ronda Reynolds.

Ronda Reynolds

They ranged from the lead investigator and the then-undersheriff to a longtime gentleman friend, a close girlfriend and the ex-wife of Ron Reynolds.

Yesterday, the inquest jury heard testimony about a Toledo teenager who gave his mother bloody clothing to launder about two weeks after the death.

He said it belonged to his friend, former detective Berry related to the jurors.

Berry, who was testifying by telephone from his home in Texas, recounted interviews he conducted in early 2010, long after he left the employ of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, while he worked as a private investigator.

Berry spoke with the man, Joshua Williams, during a series of jail house meetings in which he was told Williams and others were at the Reynolds’ boys’ house, hanging out, playing video games and partying the night before Ronda Reynolds was found dead.

Jonathan Reynolds had asked Williams previously to kill Ronda Reynolds, Williams told Berry.

Williams said his best friend, Jason Collins, was the one who did it and showed up later at Williams travel trailer asking for clothes to wear.

“He stated when Jason came in, he stated quote, it is done, end quote,” Berry recounted.

Williams said he brought the bottle of Black Velvet whiskey to the Twin Peaks Drive home.

Belinda Rodriguez, Williams’ mother, testified yesterday her son was trying to strike a deal because he was going to prison and he couldn’t handle the burden of the secret any longer.

But both Williams and Collins were then interviewed by sheriff’s detectives and passed polygraph tests, Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod told the detective during yesterday’s proceedings.

McLeod asked Berry how he reconciled some of the inconsistencies, and Berry replied that most were chronological differences, which could be explained because the boys were using drugs.

Do you still believe this was a homicide? McLeod asked Berry.

As far as he’s concerned, beyond a reasonable doubt, it is, Berry replied.

“It is my opinion, it is absolutely murder,” Berry said.

Rodriguez, the mother and nearby neighbor of the Reynolds’, also related something she said she tried to report to the sheriff’s office days after the death, but couldn’t get her phone calls returned.

Early on the morning of Dec. 16, 1998 – about 6:30 a.m. – she was on her way to work when she saw a Ford Taurus and a small pickup peel out of the Reynolds’ driveway.

They stopped on the side of Drews Prairie Road and she heard yelling, she said. She saw Jonathan Reynolds being shaken by the shoulders by his older brother, Micah Reynolds, she said.

Also testifying yesterday was Catherine Huttula, Ron Reynolds’ ex-wife.

She confirmed her ex-husband had phoned her on Dec. 15, asking about possible reconciliation.

Huttula knew Ronda Reynolds previously, as they were in the same religious group, she said. They were friends when she was married to Ron Reynolds and when Ronda was married to Mark Liburdi, she said.

What do you believe happened to Ronda? McLeod asked.

“I believe she committed suicide,” she said.

Two close friends who spent time with Ronda Reynolds the day before her death spoke of her packing up belongings because Ron Reynolds had asked her to move out.

Laurie Hull helped drain the Reynolds’ waterbed, which apparently later was put back together when Ronda Reynolds’ decided not to leave that evening.

She didn’t see a broken fingernail on her friend’s otherwise manicured hands, Hull said.

Hull last spoke to Ronda Reynolds on the phone around 10:30 p.m. She sounded calm, not upset as she had been that afternoon, Hull said.

David Bell, a Des Moines police officer who had known Ronda Reynolds about 10 years, told the inquest jury yesterday of going to the Toledo house around 7 p.m., as she had asked him to help her move.

“She was all packed up when I arrived, she was crating her dogs up to put in my truck,” Bell said.

He was there about a half an hour before they drove to Winlock to drop off some keys and made a stop at Marys Corner, he said.

She had thought she’d come stay at his place, but he told her that wouldn’t work, Bell said. So about 9 p.m., he returned her to the Toledo house.

Ron Reynolds was just walking in, he said. Bell said he spoke to her on the phone twice after midnight. She wanted him to give her a ride to the airport the next day.

Ronda Reynolds had a ticket to fly home to Spokane.

More later
•••

Read more about the inquest:

• “No fingerprints found on gun, ammo in Reynolds’ death” from KOMOnews.com on Wednesday October 12, 2011 at 6:19 p.m., here

Barbara Thompson with her attorney, Royce Ferguson, during a break at the coroner's inquest into her daughter's death. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – After hours of questioning, retired detective Sgt. Glade Austin volunteered information about a witness he had not previously testified about in the coroner’s inquest into Ronda Reynolds death.

Austin said he spoke to a woman friend of Reynolds who relayed a conversation that had taken place between the pair years before Reynolds death, during Reynolds’ previous marriage to Ron Liburdi.

The woman told him, he said, that Reynolds once told her: “If she were to get divorced, she would commit suicide, she would ‘do it right’, she would use a gun and make it look like someone else did it.”

Whether Reynolds, a 33-year-old former trooper killed herself or was shot by someone else 13 years ago in her Toledo home is a question Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod is hoping can be answered during his inquest being held in Chehalis.

She was found 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 panel of jurors seated on Monday are expected to hear some 40 witnesses throughout this week and part of next, from law enforcement officers and friends and family to experts who analyzed evidence.

Reynolds’ manner death is currently classified as undetermined, following repeated changes over the years by the Lewis County Coroner’s Office.

Austin, who supervised the sheriff’s detectives who investigated the Dec. 16, 1998 death, closed the case as a suicide, despite protests from the lead investigator detective Jerry Berry.

Austin also led the inquiry when the case was reopened almost three years later by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

He thought it was a suicide then, and he still does, Austin told the panel of jurors yesterday.

Coroner McLeod asked the former law enforcement officer about an interview with a different woman who indicated Reynolds opposed the idea of suicide.

So, McLeod asked, in the reports there are several people who thought Ronda could be suicidal and several people who did not?

Under questioning – which included primarily McLeod and Austin reading aloud various portions from reports a decade old – Austin related numerous details that Reynolds had troubles not widely known.

“I actually came to conclude she pulled the blanket over her head, had the gun in her right hand and pulled the trigger,” Austin said.

Austin had interviewed Reynolds’ husband, Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds, an individual who won’t be testifying during the inquest.

He, and his three sons who were present at the Toledo home when the first deputies arrived have asserted the privilege against self incrimination and are excused by McLeod from appearing.

Austin interviewed Ron Reynolds years ago in his lawyers office.

“His answers did not seem rehearsed, and I came away from the interview with the feeling he was believable, not seeing any of the signs that would indicate someone was not being truthful,” Austin read from his early report.

Austin told McLeod yesterday the oldest son, Jonathan Reynolds, struck him similarly.

Austin noted in his report Ron Reynolds appeared neat and well-groomed, dressed in slacks, a tie and a jacket.

Following is some of what Austin said he learned from the interview:

There were a number of reasons Ron Reynolds didn’t hear a gunshot in the next room in his house, according to Austin.

He was tired, the doors were closed, the closet was carpeted and stuffed with materials that would soak up the sound, according to Austin.

Ron Reynolds told his wife that day he wanted her to leave, their marriage was over, the “trust” was broken over her dishonesty regarding her spending; he was going back to his ex-wife, Austin related.

Also testifying yesterday was former detective Dave Neiser.

He said he’d investigated as many as 600 death scenes in his 20 years as a detective.

Neiser said it was his mistake to move the gun from the body before any photographs were taken. He said he was told it had already been done.

“That was a lesson to me,” Neiser said.

Dr. Daniel Selove, who performed the autopsy, testified yesterday as well.

The cause of death was a contact gunshot wound, with a bullet that entered in the sideburn area of her right temple and lodged near the back of her skull, Selove said.

Selove concluded the manner – suicide, homicide or something else – could not be determined, he said.

Pathologist Dr. Daniel Selove demonstrates a shooter could have been positioned in a variety of locations around where Ronda Reynolds lay. / Courtesy photo by Bradd Reynolds

•••

Read more about the inquest:

• “Inquest reveals confusion over Reynolds crime scene” from KOMOnews.com on Tuesday October 11, 2011 at 6:15 p.m., here

• “Detective stands by Reynolds suicide conclusion” from The (Longview) Daily News on Tuesday Oct. 11, 1011 at 5:31 p.m., here