Lewis County Sirens.com

Updated at 12:34 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A couple who live next to the grange on North Military Road in Winlock lost their home to a fire last night.

It was the second time in less than three days that mobile homes were destroyed by flames in south Lewis County.

Firefighters called at 8:15 p.m. to the 600 block of North Military Road near Sargent Road found smoke and flames coming from some of the vents on the roof, according to Lewis County Fire District 15.

Nobody was home at the time and no one was injured, according to District 15 Assistant Chief Kevin Anderson.

While approximately 40 firefighters responded from Winlock and surrounding districts, the double-wide mobile home and its contents were a total loss, Anderson said.

It appeared it may have originated with a malfunctioning dishwasher, according to Anderson.

Mutual aid agreements in place with Winlock, Toledo, Napavine and Vader-Ryderwood mean crews from the volunteer departments join in answering calls to anywhere in the region.

It’s been a busy five days in the south end, Anderson said.

“I have never seen this many fires clustered around the calendar as long as I’ve been around here,” he said.

The causes have varied.

Monday’s mobile home fire on South Military Road north of Vader seemed to have started in an electrical panel.

Yesterday morning, the occupants of an apartment above a garage near state Route 505 and Jackson Highway in Toledo lost their home when a fire spread from a fifth-wheel trailer.

On Saturday morning, a two-story A-frame on Spencer Road outside Toledo lost part of its roof apparently due to a wood stove pipe issue. And then very early Sunday morning, crews responded to a trash can fire inside a bathroom of a mobile home on Grimes Road east of Toledo.

Having three households lose all their earthly possessions has kicked into high gear a group Vader firefighter Ruth Crear launched last fall.

It’s called Friends Helping Friends of Lewis County and can be found on Facebook.

The mother of four, who is also the assistant fire chief for Cowlitz-Lewis Fire District 20, created the group with the idea that during these hard economic times, folks could ask for what they needed or offer what they can give.

Postings just today include such requests as a TV tray for a woman who can’t easily hold her Bible at church to a microwave to replace on that’s making weird noises.

One person wants to give away a $9 coupon for baby formula and another is looking for a good home for a dog.

In just a few months, the group has grown to 943 members, according to Crear.

She’s delivered carloads of donated food and just this week, a van was purchased with more than $4,000 in donations that came in for a woman who needs transportation for her child who uses a wheelchair.

Crear says its been amazing to see the outpouring of folks around here.

“We have a lot of good caring people in Lewis County,” she said. “It’s pretty awesome.”

She and her oldest daughter have created a second group for Cowlitz County now as well.

Friends Helping Friends today announced it was donated space in south Chehalis for all the donations coming for the three families who have lost their homes since the beginning of the week.

“I suggested we gather donations and put everything in one spot,” Crear said.

The place is Safe Family Ministries on Jackson Highway.

Items can be dropped off or Crear can find people to pick them up, she said.

The needs? Crear said everything from clothing and toothbrushes on up.

The woman on South Military Road walked away from her burning home with nothing, except a firefighter found her debit card, she said.

“The one girl (in Toledo) was due in March and she lost all her baby stuff,” Crear said.

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Update: See the video about Friends Helping Friends of Lewis County from King5.com posted on Thursday February 9, 2012 at 5:57 p.m., here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – There won’t be a trial for Laura Lynn Hickey, accused of killing her premature newborn in her Centralia trailer home last spring. She pleaded guilty today.

Laura Lynn Hickey

Hickey, now 25, was about halfway through her pregnancy, according to prosecutors who said she used a serrated knife to cut off the infant’s head as it was trying to take a breath after she unexpectedly delivered it into a toilet.

She said she didn’t think it was going to live and she didn’t want it to suffer, according to charging documents.

Hickey has been jailed since March.

She pleaded guilty this afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court to second-degree murder.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said, yes and no as to whether it was a plea agreement.

“I agreed to amend the charges down, (but) I reserved recommendation about the sentence,” Meyer said.

Defense attorney Ken Johnson said his client’s reasoning was, it seemed to be the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances.

“I guess my thinking is, this would have been a likely outcome if we went to trial,” Johnson said.

Her trial was set for the end of this month.

Charging documents indicate an emergency room doctor estimated Hickey was about 21 weeks along in her pregnancy when he examined her after what she initially said was a miscarriage.

The infant weighed less than a pound and was less than 10-inches long, according to Meyer who shared the numbers in grams and centimeters.

Attorney Johnson had an expert who would have testified the premature baby would not likely have survived.

Prosecutors initially charged Hickey with first-degree murder, but the agreement the lawyers reached left her pleading guilty to second-degree murder with an aggravating factor of the victim being being particularly vulnerable.

That means a judge will be able to – if he chooses – go above the standard sentence called for in second-degree murder.

The plea also included a deadly weapon enhancement, providing for a mandatory extra two years in prison.

The maximum possible penalty is life behind bars.

Meyer said this afternoon he has not decided how much time he will recommend Hickey spend in prison.

He called it a case where justice will be served, as both murder one and murder two are class A felonies and he’s free to recommend any length of sentence he wants.

Johnson said he will ask for as low a sentence possible given the circumstances.

Although his client was found competent by state mental health doctors to stand trial, another expert would have testified her mental state was substantially diminished, for a number of reasons, according to Johnson.

“In other words, she could not think very clearly,” Johnson said. “It was a horrendous situation, she was in shock,” he said. “She passed out at one point, losing blood. It was a nightmare”

“She feels very bad about what happened,” he said. “She made that very clear on the record today,” he said.

It was early on the morning of March 2; neighbors had called 911 after hearing calls for help coming from Hickey’s home at the Peppertree Motor Inn and RV Park on Alder Street, she was taken to the hospital and then police found the deceased male baby in a Tupperware container under the kitchen sink.

She reportedly told police she used methamphetamine two days before the incident and had been awake since then. The state had previously taken three of her children out of her home.

Hickey’s step-father puts the blame directly on her drug use.

“The girl was not in her right mind, drugs took over her life,” Donald Burgess Sr. said. “It’s a bad thing that happened here. It’s torn the family apart.”

Burgess said he’s spoken to his daughter as she’s contemplated a plea agreement. He wasn’t present in court today, but spoke to her later in the day.

She called me crying, he said.

“I told her, just pray to God, and what God thinks you deserve, that’s what you’ll get.”

Sentencing is scheduled for the morning on Feb. 22.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Prosecutors have charged a 35-year-old Glenoma resident with voter fraud, saying she registered to vote and then voted even though she’s not a U.S. citizen.

Marta Aglubi-Blomstrom filled out a voter registration form in the summer of 2009 and cast a ballot in the following November election, according to authorities.

Aglubi-Blomstrom is from Ghana, a West African country.

The issue came to the attention of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office almost two years ago, when Aglubi-Blomstrom’s estranged husband contacted them about it, according to charging documents.

Aglubi-Blomstrom will get her chance to make her plea in Lewis County Superior Court a week from Thursday.

It’s not a common offense prosecuted in Lewis County.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said he’s seen it only once locally since he came to work in Lewis County in 2004.

Mariann Zumbuhl, elections supervisor at the Lewis County Auditor’s Office, agreed instances of known voter fraud are rare.

Zumbuhl had to open a file drawer looking for a record of the last time she could remember someone registered to vote when they were not eligible. It was 1998 when a 15-year-old girl said she was 18, Zumbuhl said.

“Juvenile brought her in and talked to her,” she said.

The Secretary of State’s Office state runs registered voter’s names through a database routinely to discover if anyone is underage, or a felon whose has lost their voting rights, or has died, according to Lewis County Election Specialist Heather Boyer.

“But there’s no way to check if someone’s a U.S. citizen,” Boyer said. There’s no database for that.

Aglubi-Blomstrom appeared in Lewis County Court in Chehalis last week after she was summonsed in.

Temporary defense attorney Bob Schroeter said she understood the charge, that she marked the wrong box as to whether she was a citizen and became registered to vote.

She works at Millard Refrigeration but her income of less than $2,000 a month qualifies her for a court appointed attorney, Schroeter said.

Meagher inquired as to her native language, and learned it was called Twi.

Judge Nelson Hunt allowed her to remain free on a $5,000 signature bond.

According to charging documents, Aglubi-Blomstrom filled out her voter registration form online. It was June 2009, and her husband spoke with sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Wetzel about the following March, according to authorities.

“(The Auditor’s Office) determined she answered no when asked if she was a U.S. citizen,” prosecutors wrote. “It was determined she later changed her answer to yes, so she was able to complete her voter registration.”

Sgt. Wetzel contacted Immigration and found she was not a citizen, they wrote.

False information on an application for voter registration is a class C felony, punishable by a maximum of five years in prison or $10,000.

Aglubi-Blomstrom was just finally charged at the end of this past December.

Elected Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer today said  yes, it seemed like a lot of time went by from when the alleged offense was investigated and when it finally got charged.

It was one of almost 400 felony cases in the office on “referral status” when he took office in January of last year, Meyer said.

“Referrals” are cases law enforcement agencies have forwarded to the prosecutor to be evaluated if charges should be filed.

Meyer said he found a huge backlog.

He made it his goal to get through all of them in his first year, and he has, with help from some of his deputy prosecutors, he said.

All have either been charged, or declined or are active now, according to Meyer.

The types of cases they found in limbo run the gamut, he said. Such as the bigamy case seen in court last week, to bail jumping, failing to register and drug offenses, he said.

Meyer said the statute of limitations had not run out on any major alleged offenses, only some that were with the Cowlitz County Prosecutor’s Office from when the two offices shared a deputy prosecutor.