Lewis County Sirens.com

Updated at 1:51 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Tenino Elementary School teacher who is also a Boy Scout volunteer was arrested yesterday for possession of child pornography.

James D. Mobley, 46, came under investigation as authorities examined the records of an international company that distributed child porn through the mail, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Authorities allegedly discovered that Mobley purchased materials from the company on multiple occasions between February of 2009 and January of 2011, according to a news release today.

Mobley is described by federal authorities as a fourth grade teacher who is also a private tutor and active as a volunteer with Boy Scouts.

Any parents who are concerned about any contact he may have had with their children are being asked to call the Tenino Police Department.

In a search of Mobley’s Tenino home yesterday, law enforcement seized a computer hard drive and also DVDs containing child porn, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Emily Langlie.

Mobley is being held at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac pending a detention hearing. He is charged in federal court with possession of child pornography.

The case is being handled by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Tenino police.

The international company which sold the images is not named in the criminal complaint against Mobley, but it was almost two years ago when an unspecified foreign law enforcement agency searched the business and seized hundreds of child porn DVDs and business records, according to Langlie.

Ricky A. Riffe addresses his lawyer as a pre-trial hearing winds down in Lewis County Superior Court.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Ricky A. Riffe made an appearance in court today, the sixth time in six months as attorneys move toward a trial in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of an elderly Ethel couple.

Nothing momentous was on the agenda, but because the case is so voluminous, both sides want to make sure everything is staying on track as they go, according to Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer.

Meyer has said he has 150 witnesses.

Judge Richard Brosey today signed orders documenting some steps that have already been taken or are in progress, including notification of Riffe’s defense: He has an alibi and he didn’t do it.

No details on that were offered verbally during the court session.

Prosecutors contend Riffe, now 54, and his since-deceased brother abducted Ed and Wilhelmina Maurin and forced them to withdraw money from their bank in Chehalis before shooting them and dumping their bodies near Adna back in December 1985. Ed Maurin was 81 and his wife was 83.

The former Lewis County resident was arrested in July at his home in Alaska.

At today’s afternoon hearing in Lewis County Superior Court, at least three long-retired sheriff’s detectives, as well as elected Sheriff Steve Mansfield, were among those in the audience.

In the front row of benches behind prosecutors Meyer and Will Halstead as usual were Wilhelmina Maurin’s grown children and their family.

Riffe, wearing red and white striped jail garb, didn’t speak except to answer the judge’s inquiry as to whether he understood the orders being signed.

He is represented by Seattle-based attorney John Crowley.

Crowley informed the judge he expects to submit a series of motions. Judge Brosey indicated he wants to make sure any pre-trial hearings are scheduled such that they don’t delay commencement of the trial.

Deputy Prosecutor Halstead indicated it is still an unfolding case.

The trial is scheduled to start the week of May 6, a “drop dead” date to begin, according to the judge.
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For background, read “Maurin homicide: Riffe pleads not guilty, his attorney hints at proof” from Thursday August 23, 2012, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Lewis County coroner’s year-end tally shows a drop in accidental deaths during 2012 but several more suicides.

Last year, 21 people died in Lewis County from accidental causes, compared with 29 the year before, according to Coroner Warren McLeod’s numbers.

Most the those are due to overdoses, both from legally prescribed and illicit drugs, according to McLeod.

The number of deaths attributed to suicide however jumped from nine two years ago to 14 last year.

The coroner’s office tracks all deaths that occur in the county and is responsible for determining their cause and manner.

McLeod gave a brief report yesterday to the Lewis County Board of Commissioners, but did not expand upon any ideas about the changes. He has not yet compiled his official year-end report.

Last year, the coroner counted 822 deaths. The vast majority of cases overall are ascribed to natural disease processes.

When it comes to people taking their own lives, one of the most used methods is with firearms, according to the coroner. Hanging is second, he said.

“That’s the same as when I worked in Vegas,” McLeod said.

Lewis County saw four homicides last year, the same number as the year before.

Terry Vance, 58, of Onalaska, was stabbed to death in his bed last March by his adult son who is now serving a 30-year prison sentence.

David W. Carson, 43, Centralia, died the following week of two gunshots to his chest area in the home of a friend who is in jail awaiting a trial next month.

Two-year-old Koralynn Fister, of Centralia, died in May from head trauma and drowning while in the care of her mother’s live-in boyfriend. James Reeder, 26, pleaded guilty last week to homicide by abuse and other charges and faces possibly spending the rest of his life incarcerated.

Gregory S. Kaufman, 64, of Napavine, died in November from gunshots when he advanced upon a sheriff’s deputy with a knife in his hand along state Route 6 near Boistfort. The shooting was ruled as justified.

Two of last year’s deaths in Lewis County remain undetermined, although not suspicious, McLeod said.

Already during the first two weeks of 2013, he said, his office has responded to one suicide and one accidental death as well as two cases in which the manner is not yet known.