Lewis County Sirens.com

Susie, a 10-year-old male cat is captured by 12-year-old Daylynn Pannette's camera phone before Monday.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Centralia City Council member and pastor of a downtown church Bill Bates says he’s guilty of “making wrong use of judgement” when he shot and killed a neighbor cat with a pellet gun earlier this week.

Bates, 60, said he was surprised the animal died as when he used the air-powered rifle on a possum in his yard, he had to shoot it three times to kill it.

He didn’t mean for the cat to die, Bates said, he was just tired of it dropping “deposits”, messing in his beauty bark and walking on his clean cars.

Bates said he saw it walk behind the arborvitae shrubs and fired into the arborvitae shrubs. Usually he’s 30 or 40 yards away, he said.

“If I’d have done it on purpose and wanted to kill the stupid thing, I wouldn’t have told anyone,” Bates said yesterday.

Bates came across as frustrated that the news of the incident and criticism of him had, in his words, gone viral on the Internet.

It happened on Monday on the 900 block of Ham Hill Road in Centralia and he confessed right away, Bates said.

“I went to the owners, I apologized, offered retribution,” he said. “I’ll be glad to buy them a cat. I’ll bring ’em an Easter lily if I have to.”

Dusty Pannette and her family are devastated, and shocked, following the knock on their door and the news their 12-pound “Susie” was dead.

“We didn’t even know it was bothering this guy,” Pannette said.

Pannette said the neighborhood is filled with cats and dogs and Susie – who is actually a male – for the past 10 years has been an indoor and outdoor cat, one who often prowled the open pasture behind their houses for mice.

“Everyone in the neighborhood knows this cat, he’s not a stray, he’s not aggressive,” Pannette said. “We all let our animals roam freely, we never thought twice about it.”

Pannette said she was stunned and confused when Bates – who she didn’t really know – announced what he’d done and told her he usually shoots at her cat’s feet but this time he “got” him.

“The words I’m sorry never came out of his mouth,” she said. He just said he felt bad and said he’d buy a new one, she said.

It has been additionally disturbing to her children, who felt an extra bit of security knowing a minister lived on their block, she said.

Centralia police declined to comment, acknowledging they took a report, but would not discuss details since nobody had been arrested.

Officer John Panco said yesterday the case was sent to the city’s attorney to determine if any charges would be filed.

Both Pannette and Bates say police described to them it’s not criminal to shoot a nuisance animal on your own property.

Pannette and her husband have spoken with a lawyer and are considering a lawsuit. She’s shared a flyer with her neighbors to warn them there’s “someone on the hill that doesn’t appreciate animals and will fire on them if they come in his yard.”

If it’s not against the law, it should be, Pannette said.

The black and white feline has been taken to a local veterinarian to be cremated.

Bates is serving his fourth year on the city council and is minister at Destiny Christian Center, an Assemblies of God church, on North Tower Avenue.

Bates said he is sorry, what he did was stupid and he loves animals.

The police officer can attest to how remorseful, apologetic and cooperative he was, Bates said.

He realizes he should have spoken to his neighbors about his concerns or, “I should have thrown a rock at it, not shoot it. I’ll never do that again.”

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Since a coroner’s inquest has concluded former trooper Ronda Reynolds’ 1998 manner of death – homicide, the state Court of Appeals decided the civil case between her mother and former Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson is over and done with.

Ronda Reynolds

An unprecedented judicial review of the death in 2009 found Wilson’s conclusion Reynolds took her own life was arbitrary, capricious and incorrect. Reynolds’ mother, Barb Thompson of Spokane was elated over the decision, but wanted the higher court to clarify what can happen under a judicial review of a coroner’s decision.

In the decision filed yesterday, the three-judge panel said most of the issues are now “moot”.

The judges dismissed Wilson’s appeal and Thompson’s cross-appeal.

Attorneys who continued representing Wilson after he left office had asked for his appeal to be be dismissed.

The decision and the 2009 judicial review both stemmed from a 2006 civil case filed by Thompson.

Appeals court judges Joel Penoyar, David Armstrong and Jill Johnson also agreed in yesterday’s decision Thompson is not entitled to attorney fees as she failed to “preserve the issue.”

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod presided in October over a coroner’s inquest. He officially took office in January 2010 replacing Wilson who had been coroner some three decades.

One of McLeod’s first acts was to announce he would conduct an inquest, then he put it on hold as he learned the appeals court was looking over the issue. Then the appeals court put the appeal on hold as they learned McLeod wanted to hold an inquest.

Ronda Reynolds, 33, died with a bullet in her head in the home she shared with husband of less than a year, Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds. She was found dead on the floor of a small walk-in closet, covered up by a turned-on electric blanket.

An inquest jury ruled unanimously in October the manner of death was homicide and named Ron Reynolds and his son as responsible for the death. Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer declined to bring criminal charges.