Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

TACOMA – The new Lewis County coroner and Barb Thompson – mother of former state trooper Ronda Reynolds whose 1998 death in Toledo remains under scrutiny – were at the state Court of Appeals in Tacoma yesterday as three judges pondered the case.

Former Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson’s appeal of a 2009 judge’s order to remove suicide from Reynolds’ death certificate remains active, even though newly elected Coroner Warren McLeod has indicated he wants to revisit the cause and manner of death.

The case was the subject of a judicial review in Lewis County in November 2009 after which a panel of citizens concluded then-Coroner Wilson’s determination that Reynolds’ died of suicide was arbitrary, capricious and incorrect. A judge ordered Wilson to change the manner of death, but Wilson appealed.

A panel of three judges heard from attorneys on both sides yesterday in downtown Tacoma.

The 2009 judicial review was unprecedented and Thompson wants to see its scope expanded while the coroner’s office lawyer has been fighting to see it narrowed.

“I think one of the reasons we’re here today is to try to clarify the law,” Thompson said.

Her lawyer, Royce Ferguson, wants a judge to be able to decide more than that a coroner’s decision was wrong.

“If it’s not suicide, what is it?” Ferguson said. “And if it’s homicide, who changes (the death certificate)? The judge? The coroner? The prosecutor?”

Olympia attorney John Justice, who was hired by the Lewis County Prosecutors Office to represent Wilson, told the three appeals judges yesterday that’s beyond the scope of any case law.

Thompson has been vigorously questioning her daughter’s death – believed by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office to be suicide – for more than a dozen years.

The 33-year-old woman was found with a bullet in her head and covered by a turned-on electric blanket on the floor of a closet in the home she shared with her husband of less than a year, Ron Reynolds, the principal at Toledo Elementary School

Even though one of McLeod’s first acts after he took office in January was to change Reynolds’ death certificate from suicide to undetermined – and then he announced he wanted to hold a coroner’s inquest – he put that on hold as the appeal works its way through the system.

It could be months before the Appeals Court rules, according to Ferguson.

And yesterday, the justices questioned how any decisions they might make could apply to the new coroner, as he is not named in the case.

“My question is, is anything we do going to have any meaning at all?” Judge David Armstrong said during the proceedings.

Judge Joel Penoyar encouraged both sides to agree to substitute McLeod’s name for Wilson’s in the appeal.

McLeod spoke afterward, saying he has to consult with his attorney before deciding what he may or may not do but the way he sees it, he inherited the case.

Ideally, he still wants a coroner’s inquest, McLeod said. And he’s starting to question his inclination to hold it in another county, and to entirely turn the proceedings over to an outside coroner, he added.

It needs to be resolved, it’s gone on too long, McLeod said.

“I want to see the truth come out, I want to see this case resolved finally,” he said. ” For Barb, for the citizens of Lewis County.”
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Watch KOMOtv.com’s video from the Appeals Court here

Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter

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