By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
OLYMPIA – Witnesses testified yesterday that Rochester resident Robert J. Maddaus Jr. was a drug dealer trying to track down who’d stolen four to five pounds of methamphetamine from him before a 40-year-old acquaintance was found handcuffed and fatally shot on an Olympia street.
Robert J. Maddaus Jr.
Shaun A. Peterson, 40, died early on the morning of Nov. 16, 2009.
Maddaus, now 41, was picked up by police about a week and half later in Chehalis.
Jurors in Thurston County Superior Court heard opening arguments yesterday from Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Bruneau and defense attorney Richard Woodrow. The trial is expected to take three weeks.
Woodrow says he plans to prove the actual gun man was Matthew Tremblay, an individual who was with Maddaus and Peterson that night, and when questioned by Olympia police, blamed Maddaus.
Maddaus is charged with first-degree murder, as well as four counts of witness tampering. He is also charged in the same case with attempted kidnapping and second-degree assault of a 25-year-old woman who said she was confronted by a gun-wielding Maddaus for her alleged part in the theft, according to charging documents.
Testimony began yesterday with Peterson’s girlfriend who said she and Peterson were living at her mother’s home in Tumwater in November 2009 after having a baby together the month before.
Peterson was unemployed though he did “side jobs” and sold drugs, Randi Henn said.
Henn said she’d met Maddaus a few months earlier and knew him as Bobby. “Bobby was his supplier, and friend, I guess,” she said.
She said the last time she saw Peterson was Sunday evening, Nov. 15, 2009. He’d been on the phone the phone with Maddaus, and he was going out to meet him, so they could confront who they’d thought stole the drugs, she said.
Other witnesses yesterday described hearing five gunshots in the neighborhood at the 1700 block of South Capitol Way Boulevard about 3 a.m. and seeing a dark car speed away.
One said he saw a man running and then jump into the back driver’s side of the car. Another saw it slam on its brakes and its driver get out and get into the passenger side before it drove off.
Peterson was laying on the street, with what looked like a gunshot in his neck and his hands cuffed in front of him when he died, said Olympia resident Michael Wallace who ran outside his home after hearing the shots.
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Read most recent previous news story on Robert Maddaus here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter