By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The (Longview) Daily News reports that 25-year-old Joseph F. Echols of Centralia was sentenced to more than three years in prison for a drunken driving head-on crash last summer in which he injured three people.
Read more here
PUMPKIN MISCHIEF IN CHEHALIS
• Chehalis police were called to the 300 block of Southeast Valley View Drive about 7:30 p.m. yesterday regarding jack-o-lanterns. “It appears boys were smashing pumpkins,” Officer Linda Bailey said. However, the subsequently woman decided not to press charges, according to police.
IPAD TAKEN FROM SCHOOL FOUND IN ALLEY
• Police were to called the 1000 block of South Market Boulevard in Chehalis yesterday afternoon when someone saw a man place an iPad in an alley. An officer subsequently arrested 25-year-old Seth T. Lloyd for second-degree possession of stolen property, according to the Chehalis Police Department. The iPad had been stolen from the Napavine School District, Officer Linda Bailey said. Lloyd was booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to police.
TRAFFICKING INQUIRY
• Centralia police are investigating a burglary from the 1900 block of Trillium Avenue in Centralia after stolen items were found yesterday in at least one pawn shop, according to the Centralia Police Department.
PURSE SNATCHED FROM HOME
• A residence on the 3000 block of Borst Avenue in Centralia was burglarized, according to a report made to police yesterday morning. Missing is a computer bag and purse with its credit cards and identification, according to the Centralia Police Department. It happened sometime after midnight and the victim wasn’t sure if the home had been locked up, Sgt. Kurt Reichert said.
VANDALISM
• Someone cut the valve stems from all four tires on a vehicle parked at the 2800 block of Russell Road in Centralia, according to a report made to the Centralia Police Department yesterday afternoon. There are no suspects, according to police.
WRECK
• A 38-year-old Centralia woman suffered only a sore shoulder after her car went over a 30-foot embankment off Wildwood Road near Vader yesterday, rolling twice on its way down and coming to rest upside down, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. She was able to crawl out of her vehicle and call 911; a deputy arriving just after 1 p.m. issued her a citation for wheels off the roadway, according to the sheriff’s office. The woman had no visible injuries but her 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt had to be towed, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Olympian reports Thurston County sheriff’s deputies fatally shot a man this morning they tracked after a break-in at the Littlerock Grocery Store.
News reporter Chelsea Krotzer writes it happened sometime after 2:20 a.m. on Waddell Creek Road when the suspect came out of a home and threatened law enforcement officers with an unspecified “deadly weapon” that was not a gun or a knife.
Krotzer says a team of multiple agencies from five neighboring counties is investigating.
Read more here
Updated from KOMOnews.com at 3:26 p.m.: KOMOnews.com spoke to the parents of Keith Miles who described their horror at watching their shot shot dead after he came out of their house with a pool cue which the sheriff’s office said he swung at deputies.
Updated at 9:03 a.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Lewis County Coroner’s Office this morning identified the man shot by a sheriff’s deputy yesterday as Gregory S. Kaufman.
Kaufman is 64 years old and a Napavine resident.
Coroner Warren McLeod said an autopsy later today should provide answers and details about the cause of death, the number of times he was shot and what were the injuries Deputy Matt Wallace saw that he thought were self-inflicted.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office says Deputy Wallace approached Kaufman’s parked car off state Route 6 early yesterday morning and a heavily bleeding man lunged out of the car with a large knife.
The deputy is on paid leave as the shooting is being investigated by a team of outside law enforcement officers.
Coroner McLeod said Kaufman has no family he could find. His office learned from Kaufman’s girlfriend that he is divorced, has no children and his parents are deceased, according to McLeod.
•••
For background, read “Deputy fatally shoots Napavine man on state Route 6” from Thursday November 1, 2012 at 8:30 a.m., here
Updated at 9:13 a.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office said this morning it was Deputy Matt Wallace who shot and killed a motorist he encountered with a knife on state Route 6 early yesterday morning.
Wallace is 37 years old and has been with the sheriff’s office for nine years, according to Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown.
Wallace was alone and on routine patrol when he stopped and approached a car parked at a gravel turnout near Boistfort shortly after midnight, according to the sheriff’s office.
Initial reports indicate he observed the man who was bleeding heavily from what he thought were self-inflicted wounds, and when he tried to speak with him, the man lunged out the vehicle with a large knife.
Wallace shot the man who died at the scene, according to the sheriff’s office. The dead man is still identified only as a 64-year-old resident of Napavine.
Wallace was not injured, according to Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown. He is on paid administrative leave for an unknown length of time, according to Brown.
“There’s just a process he has to go through before he comes back to work,” Brown said.
A team of outside law enforcement officers is investigating the incident.
The Regional Sheriff’s Critical Incident Investigation team is made up of deputies from the surrounding counties of Thurston, Pacific, Mason and Grays Harbor and the Washington State Patrol.
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office is taking the lead in this investigation, according to Brown.
•••
For background, read “Deputy fatally shoots Napavine man on state Route 6” from Thursday November 1, 2012 at 8:30 a.m., here
Osborn drives a silver 2003 Dodge Dakota pickup similar to this one, but with a white utility canopy. A horse logo on one side says “Little Creek Paso Finos”
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
There’s still no sign of 80-year-old William Osborne who was last seen Monday buying a hunting license in Morton, according to police.
William H. Osborne
While a traditional search mission has not been put in place, law enforcement officers have been combing roadways in East Lewis County day and night, Morton Police Department Officer Perry Royle said this evening.
On Tuesday night, Royle and a sheriff’s deputy drove every road on Peterman Hill and around the Cowlitz wildlife area south of Morton, Royle said.
“We covered every single spur road that didn’t have a gate,” he said.
Deputies have been traveling Forest Service roads around Randle and even in the Toutle area, he said.
The Morton man made plans to meet his son in Morton on Tuesday, but when the son showed up, his father was nowhere to be found.
Police are thinking because Osborne is not very mobile, he’ll be with his truck.
They couldn’t get anyone in the air to search for it because of the clouds, Royle said.
Police are hoping to get the truck’s description out to the many elk hunters who will populate the hills beginning this weekend, Royle said.
Osborne drives a silver 2003 Dodge Dakota pickup with a white utility canopy. Its license plate is B67640P.
“We’re still assuming he went shooting or hunting,” Royle said.
Osborne, who lives alone, is 5-feet 8-inches tall and about 185 pounds. His neighbors think he didn’t return home on Monday night. His cell phone was last used around 11:30 a.m. on Monday.
Royle said Osborne’s household is full of family members looking for him as well.
Update: The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office says Osborne told a friend at breakfast on Monday he was going to hunt at Ryan Lake, which is off Forest Service Road 26 south of East Lewis County in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
The sheriff’s office asks anyone with any information on his whereabouts to call 911 immediately.
•••
For a little more, read: “Eighty-year-old Morton man not seen since Monday” from Wednesday October 31, 2012 at 10:58 a.m., here
THEFT
• A deputy took a report yesterday about a burglary to a boathouse on the 100 block of Mineral Hill Road in Mineral in which two 1950s-style Johnson outboard motors were stolen. The 69-year-old victim said someone parked by the house and walked to the structure which hasn’t been used for boat rentals since 1985 and took the items sometime between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. yesterday, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
• Centralia police took a report from the 100 block of East Bridge Street just before noon yesterday afternoon about credit card fraud.
ALLEGED RANSACKER ARRESTED
• A 37-year-old Centralia man was arrested yesterday in connection with derogatory messages written on the walls inside a home on the 200 block of High Street. A woman who lives there called police the night before and said someone also threw some of her belongings outside. Bradley M. Pedersen was booked into the Lewis County Jail for first-degree burglary and possession of methamphetamine, according to the Centralia Police Department.
UH, TRICK-OR-TREAT?
• A woman on Southwest McFadden Avenue in Chehalis called 911 about 7:40 p.m. yesterday to ask for a police officer because there were a bunch of unruly teenagers banging on her door demanding candy. No arrests were made.
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