GOOD DATE GOES BAD
• A 44-year-old Rochester man spent yesterday running errands and shopping with a woman he’d met the night before at the Red Barn in Grand Mound only to discover after they split up at the mall for awhile in the afternoon, she apparently burglarized his house, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office reported this morning. Lynne M. Vanier, 43, of Rochester was arrested yesterday evening, according to sheriff’s Lt. Chris Mealy. The victim told a deputy they’d hit it off immediately when they met and spent Sunday evening and Monday together, Mealy said. They were at the Capitol Mall in West Olympia about 4 p.m. yesterday when she said she going to run over to a friends house nearby and would be right back; he should wait for her in the Best Buy store, Mealy said. While he was waiting, he got a phone call from a friend who said a neighbor had seen the woman leaving his house on the 19,400 block of Pecan Street Southwest, according to Mealy. He arrived home to find pry marks on the front door and missing was $280 cash, as well as most the contents of prescription medications Xanax and tramdol, according to Mealy. “The bottom line is, she’s arrested for residential burglary and she’s sitting in jail,” he said.
MAN PICTURED IN GAME CAM PHOTO ARRESTED, SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAYS
• A 25-year-old Rochester resident reportedly bragged to a friend the “cops won’t be able to catch him” after a news article appeared in The Chronicle last month featuring a photo captured by a so-called game cam of an intruder into a Chehalis business. The Tukwila Police Department contacted the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office yesterday morning to say they had arrested the man after his friend tipped them off, sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust said this morning. Detectives yesterday picked up Lance H. Gauthun, 25, and booked him into the Lewis County Jail, Aust said. The owner of Ramsey Co. on Hamilton Road had set up his camera which uses infra-red technology and a motion sensor – usually for scoping out good places to hunt – in his shop after a series of thefts of pieces from his trucks and other equipment. Aust said detectives had other evidence linking Gauthun to the break-in. He was booked for first-degree theft, second-degree burglary and trafficking in stolen property, according to Aust.
MOTORIST MOWS OVER SIGN ON DOWNTOWN SIDEWALK
• Witnesses said he was driving too fast before he drove up onto the sidewalk on the right hand side of the street in downtown Chehalis last night, shearing a no-parking sign off at the ground and damaging his vehicle on the driver’s side front corner, the Chehalis Police Department said this morning about a 19-year-old motorist. It happened about 9:15 p.m. last night along Northwest Pacific Avenue, just before Chehalis Avenue. The vehicle came very close to the building there, but didn’t hit it, although he ended up with a broken windshield, detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said. Nathan S. Page, 19, of Centralia, was later arrested with a criminal citation for reckless driving and hit and run, according to McNamara.
DIFFERENT KIND OF GAS DRIVE OFF
• Centralia firefighters kept busy for about two hours last night helping clean up after a woman drove away from a gas pump with the nozzle still attached. Riverside Fire Authority was summoned about 6 p.m. to the I-5 Freeway Mart on Harrison Avenue at View Street. It wasn’t a large fuel spill, but firefighters had to create a dike and call out the Department of Ecology and someone from the city’s storm water department to make sure none got into the sewer system, fire Capt. Erik Olson said this morning. A commercial cleanup service was able to use a vacuum to suck the fuel and water mix from a catch basin, he said.
MORE THEFTS
• A Lewis County sheriff’s deputy took a report yesterday of the theft of approximately 400 feet of copper wire and a six-wheeled Polaris ATV. Sometime between noon on Sunday and 7 a.m. yesterday, somebody cut through a fence to get to the items on the 1100 block of Highway 603 outside Napavine, according to the sheriff’s office.
• Centralia police reported yesterday they took a report of a burglary to a residence on the 100 block of Aurora Street. Police, called to the home on Sunday, noted “various items” were missing and that the investigation is ongoing.
• Police were called about 2:30 p.m. yesterday to a vehicle prowl on the 1000 block of West Chestnut Street. Missing were a GPS device, a digital camera and an Amazon Kindle, according to the Centralia Police Department.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter