Lewis County Sirens.com

Plastic pop bottles in the rear of the grocery melted during the fire, but it was put out before causing exterior damage.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

NAPAVINE – It will be a least three weeks before Annie’s Market in Napavine reopens following last week’s fire.

The inventory has all been removed from the grocery store and yellow tape still blocks the entrance.

Janet Stowe, whose family has owned the Napavine Shopping Center for more than three decades, said they are waiting for the various insurance companies involved to figure out what to do.

“And with the holidays, it’s just gotten delayed,” Stowe said today.

From the outside, the 1970s era strip mall off Washington Street looks unscathed.

The destruction from the fire itself was contained to the area around Annie’s front counter and cash register, but the smoke and heat damage was extensive, according to Lewis County Fire District 5’s Lt. Laura Hanson.

Hanson said the intensity of the heat was such that two-liter pop bottles at the back of the store started to melt and their tops tipped toward the flames.

The adjacent Napavine Laundromat reopened the following day, but Sahara Pizza at the far end of the commercial structure remains shut down.

It seems they drew smoke through their ventilation system, Stowe said.

Also untouched were two separate buildings in the shopping center, Ace Hardware to the east and the storage business in the back.

The fire broke out about 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 10, just 30 minutes before closing time.

Two customers arriving told the clerk they thought there was smoke under counter, Stowe said.

Stowe said she was just exiting the Laundromat when the clerk walked out the front door of the grocery.

“I ran to my car to get my fire extinguisher but by the time I turned around, I could see flames a good two feet over the counter,” she said.

Stowe said she was grateful the fire started during business hours, and on a night when the mostly volunteer fire department was gathered at the station for a meeting.

“I would like to say how phenomenal that fire department was in getting there so quickly, and getting the fire out with minimal water damage,” she said.

Nobody was injured and the preliminary cause, as told to Stowe by the fire investigator, appeared to be accidental and electrical.

The best case scenario for the two businesses to serve customers again is in three weeks, maybe four, she said.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the skeletal remains of a woman found near Morton last year were dumped there.

The remains were found on April 7, 2011 by a motorist who pulled off U.S. Highway 12 to take a break, about 100 yards up a logging road.

Unidentified female

Who she is and how she died remains a mystery.

But the sheriff’s office says they believe foul play was involved.

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said yesterday detectives are taking a further look at the case in light of the confessions early this month of self-professed serial killer Israel Keyes who claims he killed four people in Washington state.

“We’re definitely taking a look at all our cases to see if his M.O. matches any of ours,” Brown said.

The checking is not based in any specific request from the FBI, she said.

The sheriff’s office has been tight-lipped about details of the Morton case, in hopes that withholding information from the public will better help them solve it.

A forensic anthropologist at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office believes the remains belong to a woman who was 20 to 35 years old when she died, small in stature and possibly of mixed ethnicity.

A sketch made by studying the facial bones offers a clue to what she may have looked like. The artist’s rendering was released to the news media in October of last year, but it generated no leads on her identity, according to Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod.

Dental records and DNA from the deceased have been entered into databases with no matches found.

Examination by the specialist failed to come up with the cause of death.

“Having only bones to examine, she’s exhausted, at this point, all means to figure out the cause and manner of death,” McLeod said yesterday.

McLeod, whose office has the responsibility – among others – of figuring out who she is, is hoping re-releasing the sketch will turn up someone who recognizes her.

“Not knowing who it is puts us at a real disadvantage,” he said.

Another aspect of the case still under wraps is how long the forensic anthropologist estimates the woman had been dead before her remains were found.

“We’re not releasing that yet because that’s something only the killer, or the person who dumped her, would know,” Chief Civil Deputy Brown said.

Anyone with any information about this female or the case is asked to call the coroner’s office at 360-740-1376, Lewis County sheriff’s detective Dan Riordan at 360-740-2765 or Lewis County Crime Stoppers – if the person wishes to remain anonymous –  at 1-800-748-6422.

Updated at 5:32 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Icy roads contributed to numerous collisions yesterday around Lewis County including two serious wrecks that sent local residents to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

A 16-year-old Chehalis boy was transported to the Seattle hospital after a vehicle in which he was a passenger ran into a tree on the 100 block of Brockway Road west of Chehalis. Responders called just before 1 p.m. found five teenagers and a Jeep Cherokee that was totaled, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s office.

The 16-year-old – who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt – had head and neck injuries, according to the sheriff’s office. Two girls, ages 13 and 15, had minor injuries and a 17-year-old boy was reportedly uninjured, the sheriff’s office reported. All are from Chehalis.

The 16-year-old driver, a Seattle resident, was also uninjured, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said. He was taken to the Lewis County Juvenile Detention Center for a warrant, driving on a suspended license, taking a motor vehicle without permission and for giving a deputy a false name, according to Brown.

Earlier in the morning, a 31-year-old Toledo woman was flown to Harborview with a broken pelvis after her car slid into a telephone pole on the 700 block of Jackson Highway South near Toledo, according to the sheriff’s office. Her 4-year-old passenger sustained a cut on the forehead and was transported to Providence Centralia Hospital, according to Brown. The car was destroyed in the approximately 8:40 a.m. crash, according to Brown.

Two other accidents attended to by deputies left drivers with no injuries but their vehicles with major damage, according to the sheriff’s office. The first was around 8:15 a.m. on the 200 block of Ingalls Road west of Centralia in which an SUV slid into a ditch onto it side, according to Brown.

At about 8:30 p.m., a deputy responded to a car that ran into a fence on the 300 block of Jackson Highway South, according to Brown.

And finally at about 11 p.m., a 17-year-old Centralia girl driving a pickup truck slid into a ditch and a telephone box on the 4700 block of Galvin Road in Centralia, according to the sheriff’s office. Her truck was described as totaled and her family took her to the hospital, Brown said.

East Lewis County where the residents have seen more snow fared better.

Washington State Patrol Sgt. Darin Foster, supervisor of the Morton detachment,  said he didn’t investigate a single collision yesterday.

This morning he found compact snow along U.S. Highway 12 farther east toward White Pass and mostly slush around the Morton area, he said.

“We’ve got  lot of skiers going up to White Pass,” Foster said. “We had 24 inches in 24 hours.”

Foster credited the Department of Transportation with doing a good job of keeping the highway cleared, but advised motorists to be cautious.

“Obviously, drive for conditions, slow down and be prepared to slow down,” he said.