Lewis County Sirens.com

Erin L. VanBrocklin doing a “super hero” pose out in the woods in an undated photo.

Updated

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Erin L. VanBrocklin grew up in Bellingham.

“He’s always worked, he’s always been in the logging industry,” his younger sister said.

He was in his late 20s, or maybe early 30s, when he moved away from his family and down to Centralia to start a new life for himself, she said.

He was locked up for about six years, after he robbed or tried to rob a man in Rochester, until his release two years ago in February, Tori Banek said.

“He had an addiction, but he got cleaned up in prison,” Banek said. “And we learned so much about him in the week before his funeral.”

VanBrocklin, 41, was killed in a logging accident outside Oakville earlier this month. His funeral was held in Chehalis last Saturday.

Banek, a middle school teacher who lives in northeast Oregon, said she came to learn that her brother was very close to the three crew members who tried to save his life.

“These men lived with Erin,” she said. “They called him dad, and Erin called these three men his kids, because Erin mentored them.”

One of them told her they met in prison, when VanBrocklin gave him a cup of coffee – something unexpected from fellow inmates – and told him, that if he wanted to change his life, he would give him a place to live and a job, she said.

“Erin made him want to change, something his parents couldn’t do for him,” Banek said.

Banek so cherishes a text message sent to her by the co-worker nicknamed Spider, that spoke of how inspiring her brother was, that a longtime drug dealer who thought he would return to that life, decided not to.

VanBrocklin was the second in a line of six children, a large family that is so grateful to the logging company owners who were willing to give him a second chance.

His family has now recently gotten to know how loved he was by his crew, his pastor and many others in the Centralia area, his sister said.

“That gave us so much peace,” she said. “Because his life wasn’t always on the straight and narrow.”

VanBrocklin was working with a B and M Logging crew the morning of January 10. He was bucking a log. Others were rigging up a yarder, according to the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office

A log that broke loose and rolled down the hill crushed him.

His fellow workers had to cut him out, and they placed him a stretcher and drove six miles to where they met an ambulance. Medics tried to save him but he was pronounced dead.

“Erin’s crew was one of the top crews in the company,” Banek said. “They were all the underdogs, and these three men were with him.”

Another funeral will be held next month in Bellingham, on his birthday which is Feb. 14.

There were seven work-related logging deaths in Washington state last year.

Four of them occurred in Lewis County.
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For background, read “Centralia resident dies in logging accident in Grays Harbor County” from Tuesday January 13, 2015, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – He may have used a bicycle for a getaway vehicle but the man arrested yesterday may have quite a bit of experience holding up banks.

Prosecutors say it appears Larry G. Bailey has three, maybe four, federal convictions for bank robbery, going all the way back to 1988 in Washington and Kansas.

Bailey, 52, is accused of being the man who walked into Chase Bank in Chehalis yesterday, implied to the manager he had a gun as he reached into his coat pocket and got into the bank’s vault where he was handed $36,000 to $40,000 cash.

Bailey was apprehended about 45 minutes later less than a mile from the bank, leaving his BMX-style bicycle and scaling one fence and nearly a second one ending up on the shoulder of Interstate 5 at the West Street overpass.

Police say Bailey just arrived in the area few months ago, and shows an address on the 1500 block of Bishop Road.

His federal probation officer informed prosecutors they would be placing a detainer on him, as he is in violation of his probation, according to court documents.

He was charged in Lewis County Superior Court today with first-degree robbery and possession of methamphetamine.

Prosecutors planned to ask a judge to hold Bailey on $1 million bail, given no apparent ties to the community and his history.

But he refused to be brought up from the jail.

A corrections officer told the judge this afternoon that Bailey was suicidal and not agreeing to talk to anyone.

Judge Nelson Hunt said he didn’t like to do it, but Bailey would have to be forced to come to the court room tomorrow afternoon.

“Tomorrow, if he won’t come up, we’ll need to have him brought up in the chair,” Hunt said.

The chair, according to both lawyers in the courtroom, is something they haven’t themselves seen used in Lewis County, but is something a defendant can be restrained in and moved in.

According to charging documents, Bailey made no secret of his past.

After his arrest, he was taken to see a doctor for injuries prior to being booked.

Firefighters said he hurt his forehead when he crashed his bicycle. Charging documents mention he ran through barbed wire while trying to evade authorities.

While being treated, Bailey told officers this was his fourth strike, although one of them was before the new law took effect, but he knew he would be going away forever, charging documents state.

He talked about how he had done time in prison, and how this was the first time he’d gotten a teller to take him inside the vault, the documents state.

“Bailey spoke about methamphetamine and how it was the devil,” the documents state.
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Meanwhile, for background, read “Thirty-six thousand dollars retrieved from accused bicycle bandit after robbery” from Tuesday January 27, 2015 at 10:40 p.m., here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The man arrested following yesterday’s bank robbery in Chehalis is a 52-year-old who just arrived in the area a few months ago.

Police recovered $36,000 cash when they arrested Larry G. Bailey, according to the Chehalis Police Department.

The BMX-style bicycle he was riding and wrecked shortly before he was apprehended less than a mile from the bank has been taken into police evidence. As has the pinkish-purple floral print cloth bag he apparently brought with him to put the money in, according to police.

Bailey has a Chehalis adress.

Police swarmed toward Chase Bank yesterday morning after a 10:45 a.m. call that the business on South Market Boulevard near Seventh Street was robbed. A dog track was conducted. Three nearby schools were alerted for lockdown.

Nobody at the bank was injured, but the man forced an employee to take him into the bank’s vault, police said.

Chehalis Police Department spokesperson Linda Bailey, no relation to the suspect, said he implied he had a gun, but no gun has been located.

The suspect was discovered within the hour, traveling on a bicycle crossing the West Street bridge overpass.

The floral bag with the money was inside a backpack, Bailey said. Also discovered among his belongings was a suspected methamphetamine pipe, she said.

Bailey said she believes the suspect is the same Larry G. Bailey who was arrested in November after a campfire destroyed his tent and all his belongings where he was living next to Interstate 5 at LaBree Road. That 52-year-old was cited for reckless burning.

Bailey was booked into the Lewis County Jail for first-degree robbery, for first-degree kidnapping and a drug violation, according to police. The kidnapping allegation comes from taking the bank employee into the vault, police said.

He is scheduled to go before a Lewis County Superior Court judge this afternoon.

•••

For background, read “Chehalis Chase bank robbed, one in custody after fleeing on bicycle” from Monday January 26, 2015 at 1:10 p.m., here

Customers come and go after Chase Bank reopens this afternoon for business.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Police detained a man riding a bicycle following a bank robbery this morning at Chase Bank in Chehalis.

Officers responded about 10:45 a.m. to the 600 block of South Market Boulevard.

“Initial information was the suspect was no longer in the area and a description was given,” the Chehalis Police Department stated in a news release.

It appears the robber implied he had a gun but one was not shown, according to police.

Law enforcement officers from Chehalis, Centralia and the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office set up containment and searched the area. A police dog discovered various pieces of clothing near the bank, suggesting the individual was trying to change his appearance, shedding clothing as he fled, according to police.

Schools in the are area put on temporary lockdown, according to police.

An individual matching the suspect’s description was later seen on a bicycle north of there near the West Street overpass by a helpful witness, who pointed a deputy in his direction, department spokesperson Linda Bailey said.

The subject crashed his bike and banged his forehead, scaled one fence and was attempting to scale another when the deputy apprehended him, according to authorities.

Evidence located on the subject as well as statements made lead police to believe they apprehended the person responsible for the robbery, the 12:45 p.m. news release reads.

“At this point, we believe the individual acted alone,” police wrote.

Fire department personnel responded to the shoulder of the west side of Interstate 5 near the West Street overpass to bandage up the man, and police took him to the hospital, according to the Chehalis Fire Department.

Bailey said nobody at the bank was hurt.

“Shook up, but no injuries,” she said.

The schools – R.E. Bennett Elementary, Cascade Elementary and St. Joseph Catholic School – were notified at 11:45 a.m. they could end their alert, according to Bailey.

Some money was recovered she said. An unspecified amount of cash was stolen, the bank is still doing its inventory, according to Bailey.

The matter remains under investigation.

Chase Bank was robbed in the spring of 2013, by a 54-year-old Kelso man who was followed by officers down Interstate 5 into Cowlitz County, and was arrested as money was falling out of his shorts’ pocket onto the ground.

It was also robbed a year earlier by a pair of local men who got away briefly with less than $2,500, moments after a failed attempt at the nearby Twin Star Credit Union – which keeps no cash in its drawers.