By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The new Lewis County coroner forwarded paperwork yesterday to change Ronda Reynolds’ death certificate from suicide to undetermined.
Ronda Reynolds
Coroner Warren McLeod said he is simply obeying what he believes to be a legitimate order of the court.
The case of the former state trooper who was found with a bullet in her head in her Toledo home in 1998 became the subject of a civil trial a year ago after which a panel of citizens concluded Coroner Terry Wilson’s determination Reynolds’ died at her own hands was arbitrary, capricious and incorrect. Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks ordered Wilson to change the manner of death, but Wilson instead appealed the order.
The affidavit of correction was faxed off yesterday to the county health department who will send it to the state Department of Health, McLeod said this morning.
McLeod, the county’s first new coroner in 28 years, said he reviewed the statute allowing the judicial review and decided to make the change, something he made known he would do if elected.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod
Next is a complete case review, McLeod said, “… to see if anything would give me the opinion to change it from undetermined to anything else.”
He said a coroner’s inquest is “not off the table.”
The marriage of less than a year between 33-year-old Reynolds and her husband, Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds, was ending when he called 911 early on the morning of Dec. 16, 1998 to say his wife committed suicide.
The case was closed by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office as suicide despite protests by the lead detective, within a week after the attorney for Ron Reynolds threatened to file a lawsuit if they didn’t cease the investigation.
Coroner Wilson changed his determination three times in the following years as the sheriff’s office case was reopened and then closed again.
Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield has said a change in the death certificate is not something which would cause him to reopen the case.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter