Thurston County sheriff's deputies gather outside the vacant house where Amanda Bassell was found hiding.
Updated at 8:22 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
ROCHESTER – Deputies this evening arrested the 23-year-old woman wanted for allegedly stabbing her mother early this morning in Rochester.
Amanda Lee Bassell was hiding in an abandoned house on Guava Street and 193rd Avenue Southwest.
She was barefoot, soaking wet and exhausted when she was found, according to Thurston County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Greg Elwin.
She was taken away to be booked for attempted first-degree murder.
At least five deputies and a K-9 searched the neighborhood around the home at the 18700 block of Elderberry Street Southwest, where Bassell had been staying with her parents.
They tracked her all day.
They thought she was on foot, possibly hunkered down in the brush somewhere or hiding in an abandoned building, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.
“She’s been making phone calls trying to get help, and nobody wants to help her,” sheriff’s Lt. Greg Elwin said shortly after 6 p.m.
They found indications someone had crawled under a fence, which led to a vacant house just a few blocks away, a place known for attracting transients, Elwin said.
A K-9 deputy looked inside, saw wet foot prints, and Bassell ran out from the basement, he said. Two detectives caught her running across a field just after 7 p.m.
Bassell allegedly took a kitchen knife to her sleeping mother’s neck just before 4:30 a.m. today, stabbing her numerous times. The mother awoke and fended off the attack. Bassell fled before deputies arrived, according to the sheriff’s office.
Bassell was released from prison just before Mother’s Day, where she spent almost four years, much of it in solitary confinement, according to her cousin.
“She’s kinda messed up in the head, she’s paranoid,” her cousin Krystin Martinez said.
Martinez, who also lives in Rochester, said Bassell came to a barbecue at her house the day she got out and seemed alright, except for one odd thing she said.
“She told me pregnant with three babies from Jesus and she’s named all of them,” Martinez said. “That’s the only thing I noticed that wasn’t normal.”
Martinez said her cousin had married an individual associated with the LVL gang. The sheriff’s office earlier had said Bassell had strong ties to Lewis County and was believed to have gang affiliations.
Ruth Daarud, 42, was taken to Providence St. Peter Hospital where she underwent surgery. She was moved to another hospital today, because her daughter called her, according to Martinez.
Martinez said her aunt came out of surgery this afternoon and was stable, but might have some continuing problems.
“She’s going to make it, but it’s worse than they thought,” Martinez said.
Elwin said Bassell was incarcerated for an eluding case out of Lewis County, and assaulted a guard while she was in prison.
Thurston County Sheriff's Office Deputy Rod Ditrich and his K-9 partner Rex leave a brushy area off Elderberry Street Southwest in Rochester.
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Sheriff's deputies were called to Amanda Lee Bassell's parent's home early this morning.
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For this morning’s news story and background, scroll down or click here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Like I said shes beyond repair. I was in no way sticking up for her just sharing a fact I know about what happend to her. Yes we’ve all had trauma…Our past makes us who we ar but we are responsible for who we become. She chose her actions and her path.
BTW did everyone read the comment her family memeber said about the bbq where “the only thing she thought was unusual was Amanda saying she was pregnant with 3 of Jesus’ babies”..lmfao..that shoulda been all anyone eneeded to hear to know EVERYTHING was wrong! She needs to be kept away from society. Everyone should save their sympathy for her mother and her other victims…and there will be future ones if she is “fixed” or “rehabilitated” and let back out.
I still have to say “who forced her to pick up the drugs”…. and the answer is…. herself. She brought this on herself…. and her problems were caused by…. herself. Or we could sit around and come up with a few dozen different excuses…. but in the end, it’s all on her. She did it, not me, not you, not her mother…. hold her accountable for her actions, and punish her for anything she may have done wrong.
Or we could just do what we normally do, say it isn’t her fault, and just look the other way….
I had a lot of traumatic things happen to me as well. Some of them due to the situations I put myself in, some not. However, I have never been to prison. Hell, I have never been arrested. In fact, I haven’t even had a speeding ticket in about ten years! At what point do parents stop being responsible for the actions of their adult children? Most parents out there do the best they can and make mistakes in spite of those efforts, myself included. My kids are now 25 and 22 and I wish I had more control over what they did because they sure as hell don’t listen to my advice . . . exactly like I did to my parents at their age. I thought they were so full of shit . . . and I paid a pretty high price sometimes for not listening to them. Eventually, I came around and changed my behavior. Years later, I can see how right they were. It’s so deja vu. I watch my kids making some of the same mistakes and it rips my heart out. It is so painful to have to sit back and allow it, let alone watch them suffer the consequences, but what can you do when they are of age? Am I responsible for what they do today? Absolutely not. Neither are these people. Their only possible mistake was loving her so much they let her back in their home when she got out of prison.
By the way, my daughter attended high school with this girl and verified that she was a nice kid in school, got into drugs and started hanging with bad, bad people and look what happened to her! She did it to herself and is, sadly, probably beyond repair.
@not too shocked – being “gang raped”, et all leads me to believe a different story than the one where “it’s all her parents’ fault”, unless it was her parents who allowed her to be part of that situation. Sounds more like she was a “perfect” kid in school, got caught up in the wrong crowd, submitted to peer pressure and starting doing drugs, found a loser boyfriend who then “sold” her to the “gang”. Maybe her parents did or did not help her out of her problem, and that’s why the finger was pointed at them. That’s the picture that I get from these articles and comments.
Traumatic* things happen
I knew the girl & she had A LOT of traunlmatic things happen to her & along with the drug use became the sociopath u see before u today. She was gang raped after being sold by someone who told her he loved her. None of this surprises me. While yes, Pete I agree she needs help, she may be beyond that. If she is put in a place like western state, I really hope they discover that she is unsafe to be among general society & keep her there in a maximum security wing for the long haul. I believe this girl is beyond repair & she does need help but the rest of us need to be kept safe from her too.
shes just all kinds of messed up.. says she is a gansta n thats why she is so cruel n is a savage.. crazy lady needs to be bck in the slammer w/the rest of her kind (ganstas) n her cousin keep ur head up? unless it was ur head she was tryon to stab!
If she tried to kill me, like she did her own mother then, I’d defintely shoot the bitch, Pete. And that’s no lie.
I will try and keep my point simple. She WILL be locked up. She will be released back into society. At most, in probably less than ten years.If she is like this now, how will she be at say 32, after prison with no type of mental health care to try and get her “demons” under control? She just might be your neighbor then.
Okay, now let loose with the, “I’ll shoot the bitch” comments.
@ Pete’s Bench I read ALL the articles. My opinion has not changed. She is disturbed and needs to be LOCKED UP!! My best friend was murdered in 2003, do you think I give a rats a** if he get’s help for some sad childhood trauma?!! NOPE! You do the crime now do the time.
NEWS FLASH: There are bad people in the world, including here. Whatever the reason they became that way, they ARE that way and many of them are living among us.
Do you think perhaps those of us “going for the easy condemning ” may be doing so because we believe (however simplistic we may be) that repeatedly stabbing your sleeping mother in the neck is WRONG? Thanks, but I’ll save my compassion for the mother.
I do something novel prior to posting a comment…..I read the article. Something happened to this girl earlier in her life. A possible trauma that, I don’t know, either with or without influence of substance abuse has caused some sort of severe mental imbalance.
She, as well as society, would probably be better served if she was in some type of mental health facility. Seems simple prison is only going to aggravate things.
She is going to be locked up anyway, might as well try and treat her so that possibly some good may come out of this.
It is my opinion people who go for the easy condeming are doing so out of guilt. Perhaps they are the type who could have contributed to someones trauma in their own past,and just like it when things are swept under the rug and not discussed.Out of sight out of mind.
What was she in prison for before?
“Keep your head up”? I believe it should be down in SHAME after what she did. I’m sorry your cousin has put you in such a confusing position, but she needs to be LOCKED UP for life! She is either cold blooded or seriously disturbed. I hope your family gets through this with as little emotional damage as one can in this situation.
Lock that bitch up and throw way the key. If she’d attack her own mother with a knife while she is sleeping, NOBODY is safe from this psycho.
amanda. you will always be in my heart. i wish you did not do this though. it was so unexpected.. i love you cuz. and keep your head up…