By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Denise R. Salts is expected in Lewis County Superior Court tomorrow to make her plea on a charge of delivery of methamphetamine.
Salts, 52, and a Morton woman were labeled two of the main narcotics distributors in East Lewis County after they were arrested when sheriff’s deputies and their SWAT team served a search warrant last Thursday.
When she went before a judge the next day, her attorney said she only one previous interaction with “the system”; Salts was a successful graduate of drug a number of years ago, defense attorney Bob Schroeter said.
Salts is the same woman who was shot in the face when her boyfriend and two others were slain last August inside a Salkum-Onalaska area home.
She and Venus D. Hamilton, 47, of Morton, were both charged with the same offense and both released on $5,000 bail on Friday.
The arrests followed undercover drug buys earlier this month, according to charging documents.
An informant was given $40 to purchase two “quarters” and allegedly bought them from Hamilton near Riffe Lake, according to charging documents.
The same day, an informant was given a $20 bill to buy methamphetamine from Salts.
The informant went to the Glenoma home where Salts lives and was “surveilled” as they went inside, according to charging documents.
Afterward, the informant said told the detective they asked the man who also lives there if they could purchase “a twenty” and he replied, “You know how it works”, according to the documents.
The man turned to Salts, inquired if they had “a twenty”, and left the room while Salts handed over a small baggie of a substance that field-tested positive for meth, the documents allege.
Salts survived the August 21 shootings that left her live-in boyfriend David J. West Sr, his 16-year-old son and a friend from Mineral dead in a house off Gore Road.
John Allen Booth Jr. is charged with her attempted murder, murder, attempted extortion and unlawful possession of a firearm. His trial is scheduled for the end of August. His former cell mate Ryan J. McCarthy, 29, is also charged in the case.
Salts’s arraignment is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Hamilton’s is set in the afternoon.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
I CANT BELIVE THIS $4O FOR ONE PERSON AND $20 FOR THE OTHER R U KIDDING ME BIG TIME DRUG DEALERS LEWIS COUNTY YOU ARE A JOKE!!!!!!!!I THOUGHT BIG TIME WAS OUNCES AND POUNDS!!!!!
YOU SAY THE MAN IN THE HOUSE SAYS”YOU KNOW HOW IT WORKS”. I’M JUST WONDERING HOW DOES IT WORK DID THE INFORMANT TELL YOU. CAUSE I WOULD KINDA LIKE TO KNOW HOW THE INFORMANT DESCRIBES THE ALLEGED PROCESS. IF SO WILL YOU PLEASE IN FORM US OF THE DETAILS “ALLEGED PURCHASE OF A TWENTY BAG . THESE ARE THE GUIDE LINES TO FOLLOW WHEN DOING SO”………………..PLEASE I’M DYING TO HEAR THIS ONE……..ANYONE
WHERE’S THE CASH, WHERE’S THE STUFF, WHERE’S THE PICTURES,ANY ASSESTS? SUPPOSE TO BE BIG. WE ALL SEE BIG TIME BUSTS ON THE ON THE NEWS, IN THE NEWS PAPERS.BUT ALL WE HEAR OR SEE IN THESE TWO CASES IS SEVERAL TWENTY BAGS[WE DID’NT SEE]AND MORE THAN LIKELY A USER WHO IS SAYING THIS IS WHAT WAS SAID. DA DA DA BLAH BLAH. GOSH I’D SURE HOPE THEY ASKED TO SEE THE EVIDENCE WHEN THEY GET TO COURT BESIDES A USERS TESTAMOINY [?] CAUSE WHAT I SEEN OF USERS IN MY TIME ID BE SHOCKED IF THERE WAS ANYTHING EVEN LEFT FOR THE OFFICIALS TO EVEN TEST. IF NOT, WELL THEN GUILT IS BASED ON FACTS AND EVIDENCE AND IF THERE IS NO EVID ENCE.WELP. THERE YOU GO I SURE IN THE HECK CAN’T TAKE A USERS WORD FOR IT AND NEITHER CAN A JUDGE OR A JURY OF YOUR PEERS. NO EVIDENCE …….BESIDES HERE SAY…….. NO GUILT…… NO CASE…..= JUST ANOTHER USER GOT A FREE RUN BOUGHT BY THE SWAT TEAM? I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE THE USER WOULD GIVE THERE STUFF UPAND NOT GET ANTHING BESIDES CHARGES DROPPED . OR DID THE COPS BUY THEM THERE OWN.THE INFORMANT IS NOT GOANNA GO IN THERE AND NOT GET THRER’S TO. I’D BE ASKING TO SEE THE ALLEGED EDIVENCE BEFORE ANYTHING AND TEST RESULTS
I am wondering if they are such “BIG TIME DEALERS” why then when they were arrested did they not have any Drugs on or around them??? That sounds like they might not have been the Big Dealers the law is trying to say they are!!! So this so called informant says they bought the drugs from these people but yet that is just what they are saying it’s not even likely to have happened but because they say it did then the cops will just take their word for it??? Yes of course because they wouldn’t lie would they???? Whatever!!! I think they will get what is coming to them and they should have just done the time they were going to be given and be done with it but now this is going to be far worse for whoever it was….you play, you pay….I bet the cops throw them informants to the wolves when they are done…It’s the reason they use these informants they enjoy the stuff they stir up in the real world!!!! That’s all I have to say right now!!!
Very true George.
I agree, Roger. The whole bit about someone getting caught, and knowing they are going away for a long time, but they are cut some slack if they rat out everyone else… it’s gotta go. Oh, sure, take the fact that you ratted out some more scum into consideration, but not for the overall sentence… if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
You got to remember, this IS Lewis County. 4 “twenty bags” is “major trafficking” in this neck of the woods. But even if the pushers only deal out 1 “twenty bag”, that’s still one too many. Again, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
The use of confidential informant cooperation in exchange for leniency or other benefits needs to be abolished. It is a truly foul concept. Law enforcement already has so many tools and technologies at their disposal that depending on a criminal, or at best, a person with questionable morals to make their cases for them is a flawed practice.
So a SWAT team is used to bring down “two of the main narcotics distributors” in the area and the only evidence they have on them is 4 “twenty bags”? The words overkill and exaggeration come to mind.
Like The jake dunaway says Take It To The Box!
there will be some credibility issues concerning the informant. such as are they convicted felons? are they drug users? do they have crimes of deceit, such as forgery and if it even was a male. we know how the law likes to hide their identiity right up until it comes out in trial. my advice to the accused is to take it to the box!
yah that makes sense george
Normally, this would be cut and dried, considering what was passed from one person to another in exchange for money… however, the question remains concerning the “informants” used. Are they drug users themselves who are cooperating with cops to get a lesser sentence? Are they normal folks that the cops are paying in order to get into the drug scene? Are they cops themselves?
Still a lot of questions here….