Dusty Phelps
1966 – 2017
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Dusty Phelps had recently been evicted from his home at the Mount Adams Motel in Randle, and set up camp in the Cispus area south of Randle.
His belongings were stored in his multi-roomed tent, his many guns were packed inside the Chevrolet Tahoe which was parked sideways partially blocking the entrance to his campsite. There was a separate child-sized tent with bedding inside for his dogs.
Twice earlier that day, he’d been to the motel and invited former neighbors to come check out his camp and shoot off a few rounds. It was the Fourth of July.
By that evening, the 51-year-old lay dead on the ground in his camp, from a gunshot wound.
Deputies were dispatched after a 911 call at 7:14 p.m. on July 4 from a 63-year-old Glenoma man who said he shot an individual at a campsite in self defense.
Law enforcement responded to the area, on Forest Service Road 2801 off Cispus Road, in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to investigate.
Within days, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office related some of what they had learned. The man and his wife from Glenoma said they were out for a drive in the woods, when they heard gunshots going through the trees.
The couple drove into Phelps’ campsite to contact him about discharging firearms in an unsafe manner. They said Phelps approached the driver’s side door of their vehicle and fired multiple shots, to include one round into their interior of the vehicle.
John Arnold fired one round, striking Phelps in his head.
Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Dusty Breen said the initial evidence appeared consistent with self defense, but the case would be forwarded to prosecutors for evaluation.
Last week, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer relayed to the lead detective that his thorough review made it clear Arnold acted in self defense. No criminal charges would be filed.
Arnold declined, through his wife in a phone call, to comment.
Phelps’ younger sister is still mourning, making plans for a military burial at Fort Richardson National Cemetery in her hometown of Anchorage.
“If that’s what it is, that’s what it is,” Rebecca Phelps said upon learning the final determination.
Her brother isn’t the type who would harm someone, she said, unless he felt threatened. She expressed her wish, repeatedly, the Arnolds would have done things differently that day.
“It wouldn’t have happened if he just stayed away, call the police,” she said. “He took it upon himself to take himself, his wife and his gun and confront my brother. My brother didn’t drive up to him.”
Chief Breen said last week, his recollection was there was very little conversation between the two men before shots were fired. The incident report, which includes interviews with the Arnolds, offers very little detail about what was said.
John Arnold and his wife Violet Arnold recalled the crucial moments somewhat differently from each other.
John Arnold didn’t mention any words being exchanged, until a deputy spoke with him a second time, after hearing Violet Arnold’s account.
“Violet said the man and her husband had a short conversation about shooting safely and not killing someone,” Detective Gabe Frase wrote of his interview that took place that night.
Frase spoke to John Arnold again: “He told me he remembers just starting to talk when the shots occurred,” Frase wrote.
Rebecca Phelps hadn’t seen her brother since 2013, when she lived with him for a short time in Yelm, but they kept in touch through Facebook and by phone.
She said her brother was in the military about 25 years, doing terms in Iraq and Kuwait. He was discharged in 2010 or 2011, with an injury to the side of his jaw and ear from an IED, she said.
“That really had a lot to do with his post traumatic stress disorder,” she said. “He smoked weed, I know he drank too.”
She called him a loner, who had his dogs, and spent his time hunting and fishing.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office’s reports on the incident contain interviews with numerous people who knew Phelps, interviews with the Arnolds and an interview with one person who spoke with John Arnold that evening.
Almost three weeks later, a detective went to the Mount Adams Motel where the owner said Phelps had been evicted because of complaints from other residents he was aggressively harassing them to give him things.
One of his old neighbors said Phelps was quick to lose his temper, another said Phelps didn’t have any problems with people at the motel. One said Phelps often came to his place to watch the news, and was especially interested if there was any news about the war. Another resident said Phelps was “already drunk” when he stopped by earlier on July 4.
While numerous deputies and detectives responded that evening, it was a trooper and a Morton police officer who arrived first. A Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife sergeant responded as well.
A trooper detained John Arnold at the Cispus Learning Center, where he had gotten a lift to from a citizen who found him walking, trying to get a cell signal. He had left his wife at the campsite.
WSDFW Sgt. Brad Rhoden decided to check the area for potential witnesses and didn’t find any other camps.
“I did locate, down the road from the shooting, a turnaround spot in which the last vehicle to leave it had accelerated out, spinning the back tires,” Rhoden wrote in his report.
He got a lead on who had given John Arnold a ride and went to talk to him. Don Reichert, a camper from Portland, said he turned off Forest Service Road 28 when he came across a man who said he’d just shot someone and needed to get to a phone.
Reichert said John Arnold had told him he and his wife were driving, heard shooting and bullets hitting the trees as they passed the campsite and then drove back “to tell the shooters to knock it off,” according to the report.
Detective Frase arrived to the scene about 8:40 p.m. It was then he interviewed the Glenoma couple, separately.
John Arnold said he, his wife and dog had gone for a drive checking campsites, something they often do after a weekend to see what others have left behind.
Both Arnolds said they started hearing gunfire flying through the trees near them and turned around to go express their concerns to the shooter and tell them where they could go to shoot safely.
They pulled into Phelps’ campsite, driving around the back of his Tahoe, toward his tent.
Violet Arnold said the guy sitting by the tent got up and walked to their car, and as he and her husband talked, she leaned forward in her seat to see around her husband.
Violet Arnold said the man cocked his gun and aimed it at her, and she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “She then heard two or three shots.”
John Arnold told Frase as the male walked up, his wife noted the male had a pistol in his hand, and John Arnold retrieved a pistol from his driver’s door and put it on his lap.
John Arnold said as the male arrived at his open driver’s window, the male immediately fired two shots into the ground and then pointed the pistol into the window at the couple.
John Arnold said he used his left hand to shove the male’s hand toward the windshield and used his right hand to fire his pistol once, striking him the head.
Investigators examined the scene and took photos, returning the following day to collect evidence and finish up.
Four of Phelps’ pit bulls were taken by the Lewis County Animal Shelter, and a fifth one escaped.
The reports go on to describe other items collected as evidence.
One of the first sheriff’s deputies to arrive noticed a large amount of spent ammunition throughout the camp, and observed wounds on several trees with sap running out.
A Ruger 9 mm handgun was located on the driver’s seat of the Arnold’s vehicle. A Ruger .380 pistol was retrieved from inside a purse on the passenger side floorboard. A 12-gauge shotgun was stored in the back of the Durango.
Another Ruger 9 mm lay on the ground on the right side of Phelps’ body.
Inside Phelps’ Tahoe, were five long guns, on the backseat and in its trunk area. Written in the dust on the back window were the words, “Remember Ramadi” and a circle with a star inside.
From atop wooden box next to a chair, detectives collected a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, a pipe, a box of ammunition, an unopened can of beer and a lighter.
At the south side of the fire pit was an orange Igloo water cooler. Sitting on its top was ammunition and an AR-15-type magazine. Next to that, on the ground was a Sig Sauer 556 semi automatic rifle with its barrel elevated by a bipod.
A table held a camp stove, cooking supplies and food. Between two trees, sat other camping supplies, an open case of beer and an open case of Dr. Pepper. Empty beer cans were found in the fire pit and other places around the site.
Among the items inside the large tent were several military sea bags, a military rucksack and clothing, including an Army dress uniform with Phelps’ name on it.
A deputy tried but was unable to close the passenger side window of the Arnold’s Durango before departing the scene.
After their Durango was back at their home, the Arnolds’ called to say the window switch had worked fine before, but it was damaged during the shooting.
A detective on July 6, went to the Arnolds’ residence and retrieved two bullet fragments from inside the passenger door of the Durango.
Early this month, the results from the Washington State Crime Laboratory were received by a sheriff’s detective, regarding the bullet fragments. The analysis eliminated it as having been fired from John Arnolds’ gun. The lab could not say for sure if the fragments were or were not from Dusty Phelps’ gun.
Dusty Phelps’ funeral will be held on June 14 in Anchorage, after the ground thaws out.
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For background, read “News brief: Coroner reveals name, info on man killed near Randle” from Tuesday July 11, 2017, here
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