By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
For the third time an appeals court has reversed a conviction in a Lewis County shooting death at a campground from more than a decade ago.
Kenneth L. Slert has three times been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 53-year-old John Benson, a truck driver and father of five from Eatonville.
Slert claimed self defense in the October 2000 shooting off Skate Creek Road in between Packwood and Ashford.
The opinion filed yesterday by the Washington Court of Appeals remanded the case for a new trial based on a violation of a public trial right.
Specifically, four prospective jurors were excused during a closed door meeting between the judge and attorneys, according to the opinion.
One judge on the three-member panel dissented.
According to the court record, Benson went to Slert’s campsite where the two drank whiskey, argued over politics and fought.
Slert claimed he went into his tent to retrieve his gun and shot Benson who tried to come into the tent, and then shot him a second time when Benson was laying on the ground and reached out and grabbed at Slert.
The former carpenter who lived in Tacoma has been in prison since after his first trial in 2004.
Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer doesn’t yet have an answer whether his office will go for a fourth trial in the case.
Meyer previously represented Slert while working as a defense attorney, so two of his senior deputies will be making the decision.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
John benson was my grandfather I didn’t really get to known him because I was only 1year old when it happened but he’s in my heart always and I still remember what he looked like and have the toy stuffed dog he gave me. He has grand kid named after him he was a great man.
This is the strange part. Slert had Johns truck and some of his camping gear. And if all of this happened in Slert’s campsite then why was John found in his own tent on his cot dead. Not to memtion after Slert killed John why was he hiding. The after found and arrested then released from jail did he run if he did all of this in self defence. Now Slert is putting the Benson family through hell again when will all of this going to end. Don’t you think the family have been through enough.
I knew John Benson for years and his family. Everything this idiot is saying about John is not true. John is the type of man that would give you the shirt off his back. Things that are being said about him are fiction. You are portarying John as a mean person he would not hurt a fly. His family and friends are his life and are very important to him.
Wow!