Lewis County Sirens.com

Jonathan P. Brown listens to defense lawyer Bob Schroeter after he is charged with arson, for the second time in less than five years.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Charging documents allege 26-year-old Jonathan P. Brown doused his bed and pillows with lamp oil before setting a fire while his mother and 87-year-old grandfather slept and then walked down the street with a lighter, intending to to start as many structure fires as he could before police found him.

Brown, 26, appeared in Lewis County Superior Court this afternoon, charged with one count of first-degree arson in connection with the early yesterday morning events on the 3400 block of Prill Road in Centralia.

He’s been there before.

In 2009, the then-21-year-old pleaded guilty to a string of six fires and attempted fires in the Centralia area that caused or could have caused damage to buildings including a residence and a garage. He was sentenced to four and half years in prison.

Centralia police impounded his truck this weekend looking for evidence from an early morning fire on Saturday about a mile from his home that burned the front door area to an unoccupied house, according to court documents.

“I think he presents a distinct threat to public safety, a very grave one,” Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Eric Eisenberg told a judge this afternoon as he recommended a high amount for bail.

Brown, handcuffed and shackled at his waist and ankles, was represented by defense attorney Bob Schroeter.

Judge Richard Brosey set bail at $250,000 and signed no-contact orders regarding Brown’s mother and grandfather.

His mother was in the courtroom, but declined to comment.

Sunday’s fire was contained to the bedroom, but charging documents and the fire department give an account of what could have been deadly.

Brown’s mother, Deborah Brown, said she woke up to a fire alarm, went into her son’s room and found burning pillows atop a large chair.

She yelled for her son, she yelled for her father to wake up and tried to get a bowl of water from the kitchen tap, but found there was no water pressure, according to charging documents. She ran back to the bedroom, grabbed the pillows and managed to smother the flames, charging documents state.

She then woke up her father John Germeau who is hard of hearing and called 911. It was 5:40 a.m.

Deborah Brown suffered minor burns to her hand or hands.

The fires in May and early June almost five years ago included a detached garage on Ham Hill Road, and others such as the tarp covering a recreational vehicle and someone’s portable shed, Riverside Fire Authority Chief Jim Walkowski recalled this morning. Court documents indicate Centralia police investigated two fires on Prill Road and Brown admitted to an incident at the historic Borst Home.

Brown was arrested on June 2, and his lawyer Don Blair noted in court documents his defense at trial would include general denial, diminished capacity and potentially mental health issues. But by the end of July the former assistant manager at the Midway Cinema pleaded guilty. Judge Nelson Hunt gave him 54 months – the top of the standard sentencing range – plus some months of community custody.

He was ordered to pay restitution of almost $20,000 to an insurance company and $1,000 to an individual.

It’s not clear when Brown was released from prison. Centralia Police Department detective Sgt. Pat Fitzgerald said it was “recently”. A letter in his court file from the state Department of Corrections states he was terminated from community custody on May 7, 2012, as he was screened for it and found not eligible for supervision.

Charging documents in the current case say when Brown was interviewed at the jail by Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detective Dan Riordan, Brown admitted starting the fire in his room.

“He then opened the window in the bedroom to let the fire breathe and to allow the smoke to exit the house to prevent the smoke alarm from being activated,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors allege he said he meant to burn the house to the ground, and knew it was a possibility his mother and grandfather could have been overcome by smoke and died.

When asked why, his answer was vague, but did relay he was upset with his mother over some personal issues, prosecutors wrote.

After starting the fire, he left the house, and walked down the street with his lighter, planning to start more fires until he was caught, he reportedly told the detective.

But his lighter broke, and he threw it into the brush.

He was detained yesterday morning on Mayberry Road  by a Centralia officer and K-9 partner, according to the sheriff’s office.

Brown’s arraignment is scheduled for Thursday morning. Judge Brosey appointed Blair to represent him again.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The 26-year-old Centralia man arrested for allegedly setting a fire in his bedroom while others in the home were sleeping early yesterday morning was arrested and convicted for arsons in the spring of 2009 in Centralia.

Jonathan P. Brown was released from prison and then subsequently from post-release community custody requirements in May 2012, according to authorities.

Centralia police confirmed they interviewed Brown in connection with a Saturday morning fire at an unoccupied house on Bengal Court, about a mile from his home.

Firefighters and deputies responding to the 5:40 a.m. incident yesterday at the 3400 block of Prill Road learned Brown’s 58-year-old mother awakened to a smoke alarm and discovered two pillows and a large chair burning in his room, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. She and an 87-year-old man residing there were able to escape, but the mother sustained minor burns to her hand putting the fire out, according to authorities.

Riverside Fire Authority Chief Jim Walkowski described the damage as confined to the bedroom. Brown was located yesterday not far from his home, on Mayberry Road by a Centralia officer and K-9 partner, according to the sheriff’s office.

Centralia Police Department detective Sgt. Pat Fitzgerald said he recalled the 2009 fires as similar in nature to the Bengal Court fire. Investigators found the area around the front door burning around 5:30 a.m. Saturday and also various scorch marks on the side of the house.

Brown was arrested yesterday for first-degree arson, domestic violence and booked into the Lewis County Jail, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said.

He is tentatively scheduled to go before a judge in Lewis County Superior Court at 4 p.m. today.

•••

For background, read “Fire, law enforcement investigating two arsons in Centralia” from Sunday March 23, 2014, here

A firefighter cuts a hole through the exterior of a house on the 700 block of Bengal Court to ensure a fire is entirely extinguished on Saturday. / Courtesy photo by Riverside Fire Authority

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Centralia man is in custody this morning after firefighters were called to a home where a burning pillow was taken out of a house by a woman who lives there.

She suffered a minor burn to her hand, according to Riverside Fire Authority.

The incident occurred at just about the same time early this morning as an arson attempt yesterday morning at a vacant house for sale about a mile away, Fire Chief Jim Walkowski said.

“At about 5:40 a.m. (today) we got called to a residential structure fire at the 3400 block of Prill Road, but while enroute, we were advised they had the fire out,” Walkowski said. “We found a fire intentionally set inside the house.”

The damage was limited to a bedroom, in the home occupied by three adults, one of whom was detained by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, according to the fire department.

The fire department and the sheriff’s office remain at the scene, conducting an investigation, Walkowski said. The other inhabitants had been sleeping, he said.

“Why? At this point no, we don’t know why he did that,” Walkowski said. “It’s very unfortunate.”

The fire department and law are still investigating a fire from yesterday morning at the 700 block of Bengal Court in which crews called about 5:23 a.m. found flames around the front door and quickly put it out.

Multiple attempts to ignite a fire there were found, with scorch marks discovered on the side of the house, according to the chief.

Centralia police brought a person in for questioning yesterday about that fire, Walkowski said. He declined to say if it was same man the sheriff’s office arrested this morning, saying it was something law enforcement would be able to better address.

The damage yesterday at Bengal Court was estimated at about $8,000, personnel remained on the scene about five hours, according to Walkowski.

It is not related to a residential fire on March 9 nearby on the 600 block of Bengal Court where at about 4:30 a.m. fire was discovered around a bathroom ceiling fan, according to the fire department. That was definitely electrical, the chief said.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Derral Kenneth Mosby was wanted on two warrants, one in Lewis County and another out of Thurston County Superior Court.

But he also knew Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Sgt. Rob Snaza wanted to talk with him about as many as five burglaries ranging from Vader, to Adna and into Rochester.

Derral Kenneth Mosby

“We thought he might be pawning stuff,” Snaza said. And he believed law enforcement in Thurston County wanted to talk with him as well, Snaza said.

At the end of February, a warrant was issued after the 36-year-old Rochester man failed to appear in court for a drug possession case in Thurston County. At about the same time, a trafficking in stolen property charge was filed in Lewis County Superior Court, alleging a pearl necklace Mosby gave his 6-year-old daughter came from a burglary on Penning Road west of Chehalis.

A Lewis County judge signed a $25,000 arrest warrant.

The web site for the TV show Washington’s Most Wanted featured him shortly after, when Lewis County shared on its Facebook page they would like tips on the whereabouts of the 6-foot 8-inch tall subject who frequented the Centralia area and had ties to Ridgefield.

A week ago, following a standoff at his parents home near Ridgefield, the wanted man was dead.

“Shots were fired and Mosby was struck,” the Clark County Sheriff’s Office said.

His former neighbor in Rochester hadn’t spoken a word to him in a year, since the two of them had a disagreement about suspicions of Mosby cutting wood from his property to sell, and Mosby punched him the face one day.

But, said Bryan Fisher who previously considered Mosby a best friend, he’ll take off work early tomorrow to attend the funeral.

Mosby, who went by Kenny, was good person with a good heart and a devoted father to his 6-year-old daughter, with a yard full of play equipment he’d made for her, according to Fisher.

He used to work as a millwright at Cascade Hardwood but after he lost his job, he battled depression, Fisher said.

He’d lost his younger brother and when his sister committed suicide last July, he just went off the deep end, Fisher said.

“He was a really great guy, a really talented ballplayer in high school; he went to W.F. West and graduated from Rochester,” he said. “Before the drugs got to him, he was a pretty loyal guy.”

Others in the Rochester neighborhood began to get leery about things getting stolen as well, according to Fisher.

“The guy didn’t work for three years, and managed to keep food on his table,” he said.

Mosby’s house was foreclosed on earlier this year, he said.

According to court documents, back in November, someone  kicked open a door at a home on Penning Road, west of Chehalis and took all the jewelry plus a camera from the master bedroom, but left two firearms in the bedroom closet.

Snaza said some of the other break-ins under investigation included similarly kicked in doors.

Court documents say a detective investigating a burglary on Clinton Road in Adna learned of a suspicious maroon truck and on Feb. 1, a deputy contacted Mosby in his maroon truck, parked in the middle of the night at state Route 6 and Schueber road .

Mosby said he couldn’t go home to Rochester, because of a retraining order involving ex-girlfriend, court documents state. He was talked to and let go, according to court documents.

Two weeks ago, law enforcement officers swarmed a rest area off Interstate 5, after, according to KATU TV in Portland, Mosby’s father called the state patrol, telling them his son had just called him and told him he was shot in the leg and was at the southbound Gee Creek rest area near Ridgefield.

Local law enforcement reached out to the Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force, who helped look for Mosby that night, according to Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Eric Wahlstrom in Portland.

And U.S. Marshals continued to search for Mosby, Wahlstrom said.

There were no federal warrants, only the two from Lewis and Thurston counties, he said.

“We tend to be the ones who are available to sit and surveil places,” he said.

Wahlstrom said the reasons they considered Mosby armed and dangerous were because they had information from family and friends that he had access to firearms, that he had said he had been shot that day and that he could have been suicidal.

Some leads took law enforcement to Albany, Ore. and then it was U.S. Marshals who searched a barn last Friday in the Ridgefield area and subsequently discovered Mosby was at his parents home, according to Wahlstrom. They called the Clark County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team, he said.

Sgt. Fred Neiman of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office said that after attempts to get Mosby to peaceably surrender, Mosby emerged from the residence, armed with a firearm and confronted SWAT team members. Mosby was hit, and deceased before the ambulance could take him to a hospital, according to Neiman.

Exactly how many shots were fired or who fired them or other similar details have not been revealed. Neiman said all of that will be released after an investigation conducted by an outside law enforcement team. And then the county prosecutor will make a determination about if deadly force was justified, he said.

Six members of the sheriff’s office, along with a patrol supervisor from the Battleground Police Department were all placed on what Neiman called critical incident leave.

Neiman said it was common practice after any traumatic incident. The last time he could recall multiple officers being put on the paid leave from a single event was a shooting incident in 2008 or 2009, he said. It’s not a disciplinary action, but an opportunity to “decompress,” he said.

Fisher said it was about the same time as the manhunt at the rest area, he found Mosby’s home in Rochester surrounded by deputies from Thurston County. He spoke with them, he said.

Deputies did want to talk with Mosby about burglaries, Fisher said.

“Kenny did not want to be caught,” he said.

SWAT activity for wanted subject near Ridgefield on March 14. / Courtesy photo by Clark County Sheriff’s Office