Posts Tagged ‘By Sharyn L. Decker’

Sharyn’s Sirens: Daily police and fire roundup

Monday, December 31st, 2012

BREAK-IN IN CENTRALIA

• Centralia police were called about 6:40 p.m. yesterday to a burglary at an apartment attached to a business on the 1400 block of South Gold Street. Jewelry and camera equipment were missing, according to the Centralia Police Department.

BREAK-IN IN PACKWOOD

• A dresser drawer and its contents were stolen in a burglary on the 200 block of Bevin Lake Road in Packwood, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported this morning. The 70-year-old victim called 911 on Friday to report someone had broken a door to get into his home sometime during the previous two days, according to the sheriff’s office.

STOLEN HONDA CARS

• A 1994 Honda Accord reported missing on Saturday from the 100 block of Washington Avenue in Centralia was found yesterday afternoon abandoned in a field near Fair Street and Kresky Avenue, according to the Centralia Police Department. It had a flat tire and its stereo was missing, according to police.

• A stolen red Honda Civic was recovered on Friday afternoon on the 900 block of South Schueber Road in Centralia.

BICYCLE HEIST

• Three children’s bicycles were reported stolen yesterday from the 1100 block of Scammon Creek Road in Centralia.

CAR PROWL

• Police were called on Saturday afternoon to the 2700 block of Mount Vista Road in Centralia regarding a vehicle prowl that had occurred several days earlier.

VANDALISM

• Centralia police took a report yesterday afternoon of graffiti painted onto a building on the 1200 block of North Schueber Road in Centralia.

TEEN DUI

• A 17-year-old girl was arrested about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday for driving under the influence of marijuana as well as possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to the Centralia Police Department. It happened on the 900 block of Harrison Avenue. Other suspected but unspecified drugs were discovered in the vehicle, according to police.

TEEN WRECK

• An 18-year-old Chehalis resident and his passenger were reportedly uninjured when he lost control of his vehicle and rolled it onto its top overnight on Pleasant Valley Road west of Chehalis. A deputy called just after midnight to milepost 7 issued a citation for wheels off the roadway, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

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It’s snowing this morning.

The year in review: What topped the local “sirens” news

Sunday, December 30th, 2012

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

JANUARY

The year 2012 began with a 49-year-old Rochester woman being treated for serious injuries following a New Year’s Eve wreck on Brooklyn Road southwest of Oakville that fatally injured three of her companions.

Colleen L. Stuart was in the intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle while deputies investigated the single-vehicle collision that killed her boyfriend Gregory D. Martin, 52, of Rochester, as well as Travis W. Bennett, 26, and Jessica L. Brick, 22, both of Centralia.

Stuart died less than 11 months later after her truck ran into off the road into a fence on Old Highway 99 near Tenino.

FEBRUARY

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Matz building

An early morning fire on Valentines Day ravaged the Dr. Matz building in downtown Centralia displacing the residents of 12 upstairs apartments, Centralia Perk, an antique store, a tattoo shop, a barber shop, a hair salon and Curious Betty’s clothing boutique.

Linda Hamilton, owner of the oldest masonry structure in town, credited Jacob Dow for saving lives by pounding on doors to wake up the occupants. The fire marshal said a plausible possible cause was a candle burning on a desk inside Curious Betty’s, but the structure had to be demolished before a fire investigation was completed.

MARCH

Twenty-five-year-old Joshua Vance was jailed for fatally attacking his father with a knife while he was asleep in bed in their Onalaska home.

Terry Vance, 58, was popular baseball coach. His son suffered from psychotic disorder and was said by his grandmother to have gone off his medication for a few days while his doctors were changing his prescription.

Joshua Vance was sentenced in October to 30 years in prison for first-degree murder.

Less than a week after Terry Vance’s death, Centralia police were investigating a homicide.

Weston G. Miller, a 29-year-old former welder, allegedly shot a houseguest twice, fleeing his B Street home while 43-year-old David Wayne Carson was dying.

Carson, who grew up in Centralia, had previously worked at Hardel Plywood and before that took care of expensive show dogs in California.

Miller has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and remains in jail awaiting a trial which is set for February.

Centralia City Council member and pastor of a downtown church Bill Bates was charged criminally for fatally shooting his neighbor’s cat with a pellet rifle, saying he was tired of the animal walking on his clean cars and messing in his beauty bark.

A deal was made so the 60-year-old – who said he was surprised the pet died as when he used the rifle on a possum in his yard, he had to shoot it three times to kill it – could keep his record clean if he paid restitution and refrained from shooting animals for six months.

APRIL

After a trial that stretched over nearly two weeks, former Pe Ell High School softball coach Todd Phelps was convicted of third-degree rape involving a 16-year-old team member.

The attorney for the 52-year-old log truck driver painted a picture of a coach who became close to the girl because he was worried she was cutting on herself and might commit suicide. The prosecution told jurors of a man who gradually seduced a teen already troubled with low self esteem and depression.

Phelps was given a prison sentence two days shy of six years.

A 24-year-old member of the local National Guard drowned during the Pe Ell River run in mid-April.

Daniel Kuhn, of Olympia, wasn’t reported missing until two days after the annual event on the Chehalis River, but his body was found within days near the area he had last been seen in his small rubber raft between Doty and Dryad.

MAY

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Nicholas Matchett

Tragic drownings on the Chehalis River continued with the early May loss of 8-year-old Nicholas Matchett when he apparently slipped off the steep bank behind his Boistfort area home.

Less than two weeks later, 16-year-old Christopher Puentes-Garay died while swimming southwest of Rochester.

The spring of 2012 was a deadly one for young people.

Another 16-year-old, Tyler S. Gonzalez, was killed when during an underage party, he drunkenly wandered onto Brockway Road and either laid down, passed out or went to sleep before he was run over by a full-sized SUV.

Well over 200 people came together in a Centralia park to raise candles for 2-year-old Koralynn Fister who died from head trauma and drowning while in the care of her mother’s boyfriend.

James M. Reeder, 25, claimed he found her face down in the bathtub and carried child to neighbors across the street from her house asking them to call 911 while he attempted CPR.

Prosecutors allege Reeder tortured and raped the toddler.

The lifelong Lewis County resident is charged with homicide by abuse and other related offenses. He remains held in the Lewis County Jail on $5 million bail awaiting a January trial.

JUNE

An elderly retired businessman relocating to Arizona found a new friend – one that he called a hero – in Lewis County after his 31-foot travel trailer caught fire alongside Interstate 5 south of Chehalis.

Antonio Martinez of Napavine stopped to help the 79-year-old traveler rescue his dog from the far back of his SUV while numerous bystanders took photos and video. Firefighters miraculously found Ken Schumann’s cash savings among the ashes, but fortunately for Schumann, Martinez stuck around during the wait for the a tow truck.

When Schumann fell from the wreckage and gouged his wrist, Martinez was there to put pressure on the wound. Martinez took the dog to his home, and then went to the hospital to wait until Schumann was released.

JULY

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Ed and Wilhelmina Maurin

News of an arrest from the 1985 slaying of an elderly Ethel couple took many by surprise.

Rick Riffe, 53, was brought from his home in Alaska to the Lewis County Jail and charged with the murder, kidnapping and robbery of Ed and Wilhelmina Maurin.

Sheriff Steve Mansfield described to a well-attended press conference how the sheriff’s office felt it had a strong case back in the early 1990s, but for whatever reason wasn’t able to persuade a prosecutor to file charges.

The Maurins were reported missing Dec. 19, 1985 after guests arriving for a Christmas party found nobody at their home. The following day, their car was found abandoned in the Yard Birds parking lot in Chehalis. Their bodies were discovered on Christmas Eve dumped near Adna.

Riffe has pleaded not guilty, but remains held in the Lewis County Jail on $5 million bail. His trial is scheduled for May.

AUGUST

It was so hot and dry, a red flag warning was put in place because of the potential for “explosive” fire growth.

While firefighters battled a blaze near Cle Elum that charred thousands of acres and carried a smokey haze over Lewis County, local crews were on edge with grass and brush fires from Toledo to Rochester.

In Mineral on Aug. 14, members of a half dozen fire departments spent six hours extinguishing fire that spread from a vacant building, to three outbuildings as well as brush and trees.

SEPTEMBER

Two Lewis County men survived a deadly boat wreck near the entrance to Willapa Bay that took the life of 70-year-old rural Chehalis resident Robert “Tony” F. Garrity.

A Coast Guard helicopter from Astoria located the 24-foot vessel the morning of Sept. 5, after the trio didn’t return home the night before from a fishing trip.

Charlie Garrity, 26, of Chehalis, and Shad Hail, 30, from Centralia, were hoisted into the helicopter and taken to a nearby hospital. The Pacific County Sheriff’s Office said somehow the men strapped themselves to the overturned boat but sometime during the night the straps broke.

OCTOBER

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Simmons’ horses

The month began with news of authorities seizing nine malnourished horses from a couple near Morton.

Joanne M. Simmons, 65, and Terry L. Simmons, 58, who live off of state Route 7, said they were in the process of giving the Kiger Mustangs away because they had too many. They were charged with animal cruelty.

Before the month ended, dozens of fox hounds were rounded up and confiscated from a 79-year-old Dryad woman’s property.

Nancy Punches was charged with animal cruelty as well as a violation of another state law regarding dog breeding.

Her 65 dogs were living in conditions described as deplorable, overrun with feces. Punches said she didn’t intend for them to multiply, but their fencing had deteriorated.

NOVEMBER

Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Wallace shot and killed an apparently suicidal motorist he stopped to help during the night at a gravel turnout along state Route 6 near Boistfort.

Sixty-four-year-old Gregory S. Kaufman of Napavine had superficial cuts to his neck and wrist and instead of laying his knife on the dashboard as asked, he got out of his car and advanced upon the deputy, according to authorities.

The Lewis County prosecutor concluded the shooting was justified.

Voters decriminalized recreational use of marijuana, leaving many dazed and confused about the historic changes.

While statewide the initiative passed by a little more than 55 percent, about that same proportion of Lewis County said no to the measure that still leaves no place to legally acquire weed.

DECEMBER

After an approximately six-week long trial in Lewis County Superior Court, jurors returned a verdict in favor of Menasha Forest Products, saying it’s clear-cutting of trees above Glenoma  was not to blame for mudslides that damaged properties belonging to 11 families.

The lawyer representing the plaintiffs said the timber company harvested on a steep, unstable slope causing the January 2009 destruction below. Menasha’s attorney said the company followed the logging rules set by the Department of Natural Resources.

A similar lawsuit involving seven other Glenoma property owners against Port Blakely is scheduled to go to trial in April.

Volunteers begin searching Morton for missing man

Sunday, December 30th, 2012

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Police and volunteers are searching around Morton today hoping to find a 76-year-old man who failed to return to his assisted living facility on Friday.

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Lawrence W. Thorsteinson

Lawrence W. Thorsteinson apparently has minor dementia, he takes medication for it, according to Morton Police Department Chief Dan Mortensen.

Mortensen said Thorsteinson has lived at Heritage House for the past couple of years and has no family in the area.

He was reported missing about 9:30 p.m. on Friday.

Thorsteinson was last seen around noon on Friday at Heritage House at 860 W. Main Ave. and also during the same time frame trying to check into Roy’s Motel a few blocks away, but he had no money, Mortensen said.

Police have contacted his known acquaintances and the businesses he frequents in town and no one has seen him, according to the chief.

When last seen, he was wearing a brown hat, a brown sweater or jacket, a red shirt and jeans, according to police. He is 5-feet 10-inches tall, weighing about 190 pounds with gray hair and brown eyes.

Police initiated an automated call yesterday to about 900 homes in the area with no results, Mortensen said.

Mortensen said some volunteers from Chehalis are expected today to check the wooded areas around town.

Jennifer Mau, a Morton woman who runs a private group called Search and Seek, said she is looking along the banks of the nearby Tilton River and had about three or four individuals answer her call to meet at Gus Backstrom Park at 11 a.m. to look for Thorsteinson.

The volunteers include a private contractor from Longview who conducts searches with dogs, three of which are in Morton today, according to Mau.

Mossyrock resident Coleen Reeder whose father lives at Heritage House learned of the search parties this morning and is packing up her husband and three teenage boys to head out to help.

Chief Mortensen said law enforcement officers have pretty well scoured areas in town and it’s possible Thorsteinson got on a bus or was picked up by a friend and gone somewhere.

News brief: Missing Thurston County mom turns up at mall

Saturday, December 29th, 2012

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The 33-year-old Thurston County mother missing since last Saturday has been found, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.

Kyndra L. Nevils hadn’t been seen since she left her children with a roommate at home east of Tumwater and was believed to be headed for the Capitol Mall in west Olympia.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Alvin Griffin said today she turned up just after 8 p.m. last night. A deputy and her husband contacted her at the mall, he said.

Griffin didn’t have details about where Nevils had been. He said her husband was going to take her to a hospital, but it wasn’t clear for what.
•••

For background, read “News brief: Thurston County mom missing almost a week” from Friday December 28, 2012, here

News brief: Three victims of Rochester wreck remain hospitalized

Friday, December 28th, 2012

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Almost two weeks after a head-on crash in Rochester, three of the four persons injured remain hospitalized.

Angela M. Saxon, 40, was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she was listed in critical condition following the Dec. 16 collision  on U.S. Highway 12 at Denmark Street.

Saxon is in satisfactory condition today, according to a hospital spokesperson.

The driver of the car she was in, Eric W. Saxon, 41, was in good condition today at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia. They are both from Rochester.

The Centralia couple traveling in a 1993 GMC van were both taken to Providence Centralia Hospital immediately after the wreck.

Rita S. Dominguez, 54, just got released on Friday, according to her daughter.

Yesenia Dominguez, who also lives in Centralia, said her father was transferred to Harborview that weekend and underwent his second surgery there today.

J. Vidal Dominguez-Mireles, 54, who has his own handyman business, had a broken pelvis and what his daughter described as a burst vertebrae.

“Luckily he’s not going to be paralyzed, that’s the miracle,” Yesenia Dominguez said.

It’s an intersection that has seen several fatalities over the years, according to West Thurston Regional Fire Authority Lt. Eric Smith who was part of the crew that responded to the afternoon wreckage.

The Washington State Patrol described the collision as occurring when Dominguez-Mireles moved into the oncoming lane to avoid stopped traffic.

Yesenia Dominguez said she understood the car in front of her parents stopped very fast and her dad swerved to miss it. Both vehicles were totaled.

The 30-year-old says she’s been praying for her parents and the other couple who she doesn’t know. It’s the kind of incident that’s made her rethink the importance of family, she said.

“You work all day, come home and don’t take a lot of time for family,” she said. “I realize my mom and dad could be worse; like, not here.”
•••

For background, read “News brief: Four injured in Rochester head-on crash” from Sunday December 16, 2012 at 6:10 p.m., here

News brief: Thurston County mom missing almost a week

Friday, December 28th, 2012

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office is seeking information about a missing mother who hasn’t been seen since she left her home for a trip to the mall before Christmas.

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Kyndra L. Nevils

At about 7 p.m. last Saturday evening, Kyndra L. Nevils departed her residence east of Tumwater to go to the Capitol Mall in west Olympia, according to the sheriff’s office.

She left her children at home with a roommate and never arrived at the mall, according to Sgt. Ray Brady.

She wasn’t driving and deputies don’t think she took a bus as she had planned, Brady said in a news release.

Her home is in the general area of Yelm Highway and College Street, according to Brady.

Nevils, 33, is described as 5-feet 3-inches tall with a medium build and black hair with green eyes, according to the sheriff’s office.

She has a tattoo on her upper chest. She has no known medical conditions.

Anyone who sees her or knows her whereabouts is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 360-704-2740.

Sharyn’s Sirens: Daily police and fire roundup

Friday, December 28th, 2012

ZOOM, ZOOM

• An 18-year-old Army soldier said his clutch got stuck after getting caught driving 100 mph in a 35 mph zone south of Chehalis and then trying to outrun a police vehicle last night. A deputy on patrol on Maurin Road in the Chehalis Industrial Park at about 9:30 p.m. attempted to pull over the speeding sports car but it blew a stop sign and turned onto Rush Road, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. The newly purchased 2007 Scion entered a driveway on the 1800 block of Bishop Road in an attempt to hide from the deputy, but the deputy pulled in behind it, Cmdr. Steve Aust said. Jonathan R. Cook, of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, said the clutch malfunctioned, but his 17-year-old passenger said no, he was just speeding, according to Aust. Cook was booked into the Lewis County Jail for attempting to elude.

TAKE THAT!

• Police were called to a Northwest Chehalis Avenue bar about 10:50 p.m. yesterday when an arriving patron who appeared drunk was told to leave and on the way out allegedly punched out the window. Officers located a suspect near the fire station with blood on his hand, according to the Chehalis Police Department. Aaron A. Cogburn, 22, of Centralia, was arrested for the damage at Paradise and then booked into the Lewis County Jail for third-degree malicious mischief, Sgt. Brian Hickey said.

AND MORE …

• And numerous other calls such as dead cat in the road, dead raccoon by the garage, misdemeanor assaults, fender benders, and my neighbor’s unfriendly pit bull won’t let me get out of my car.