Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A $10 million warrant was issued late today for the arrest of John Allen Booth Jr. wanted for two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in connection with the slayings off Gore Road this weekend.

John A. Booth Jr.

The 31-year-old man from Onalaska is still at large.

Another person has been arrested and is in custody in the Lewis County Jail.

Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield called the individual a person of interest in the case but declined to say more about what that meant. Mansfield said the individual was picked up by the state Department of Corrections for a probation violation.

Mansfield in a news release this afternoon said the survivor from the triple homicide is in stable condition. The sheriff said the fourth victim of Saturday’s early morning shootings is 51 years old. He still won’t reveal if that person is a male or a female.

Booth was just released in December from his third stint in Washington prisons.

When deputies arrived about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday to the Onalaska-area home, they found three dead. They are David J. West Sr. 52, and his son David J. West Jr., 16, who lived there and also Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral. The status of West Sr.s girlfriend who reportedly resided there hasn’t been revealed by the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office released an updated photo of Booth and say he is still believed to be driving a turquoise 1995 Saturn Coupe, with a license plate of 319 UEB.

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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.

David J. West Jr., 16, with his dad's motorcycle from the teenager's MySpace page

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Sixteen-year-old Forrest Moore of Onalaska described his slain friend as a student who got “amazing” grades, with a father who kept a fairly tight leash on him and who looked forward to one day inheriting his dad’s root-beer colored show car, a 1968 442 Oldsmobile.

David J. West Jr., 16, was one of three people found shot dead inside his Onalaska area home early Saturday morning.

“He was a rare friend, he loved life, he never got in any trouble,” Forrest said yesterday. “He pretty much got to do whatever he wanted that was legal, he had a good life.”

David, who went by D.J. died along with his father David J. West Sr. 52, and Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral in the West’s rental home off Gore Road, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. A fourth individual who was wounded with a gunshot was hospitalized.

Authorities have issued a nationwide arrest warrant for the suspect, 31-year-old John Allen Booth Jr. from Onalaska.

The two teenagers became best friends when they were both new at Onalaska High School, according to Forrest. D.J. came from Mossyrock and Forrest moved to Gore Road from Centralia.

The two more or less kept to themselves because they were both the type who didn’t talk much, according to Forrest.

The teenagers hung out at D.J.’s house a lot, so much that when Forrest planned to stay over again Friday night, D.J.’s father said no, because he’d been spending the night so much lately. Forrest said it made his mother cry to know he easily could have been there when the shootings happened.

Forrest said his friend’s father was somewhat strict, giving his son a curfew but letting him do lots of things as long as he knew where his son was and how to get a hold of him.

“His dad was a really great dad for him , he was like his best friend,” Forrest said.

The boys spent one day late last week helping clean up rocks from around the West’s cement fish pond. “I made $40 and that’s the only reason I could go to the fair,” Forrest said.

He said D.J. recently confided in him how tough it was going to be when his dad went away to prison soon because he’d never really been away from him.

Forrest described D.J.’s father’s trouble as coming from when he and a friend beat up some kids.

West Sr. was arrested last summer after he and two other men allegedly ambushed several teenagers camping outside Winlock when West Sr. was reportedly trying to get back money he believed some of them had stolen from him. West. Sr. admitted hitting a 17-year-old boy with a jack handle, and retrieving $4,000, according to charging documents in his case. Another man, 45-year-old Robert S. Russell, allegedly brandished a handgun and fired a shot during the incident. West Sr. has pleaded guilty but his sentencing has been repeatedly postponed, according to court records.

Forrest said he doesn’t think the weekend killing was about a drug debt, like the sheriff’s office says. D.J.’s father didn’t seem like that kind of person, he said.

“He had a lot of friends over but I knew nothing about drugs, he seemed clean to me,” Forrest said. “I just want the true story to be told, I don’t want them slandered.”

The teenager said he even met the suspect Booth Jr. at D.J.’s house when he came over one night several weeks ago with another man.

“He was really big and really scary, but quite polite,” he said. He had really huge arms, he added. “He didn’t strike me as bad.”
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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Two of the three people slain in the early Saturday morning shooting in the Onalaska area are a father and his 16-year-old son who lived in the house, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office said this afternoon.

David J. West Sr. 52, and David J. West Jr., 16, were dead at the scene when deputies arrived about 2:30 a.m. yesterday.

The third individual who died is named as Tony E. Williams, 50, of Mineral, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Steve Mansfield is still not identifying the fourth person shot and wounded but said that person is in good enough condition they can talk and be interviewed by his detectives this afternoon. The individual was taken by Life Flight helicopter to an undisclosed hospital.

David West Jr. would have been a junior at Onalaska High School this fall, according to Forrest Moore, 16, who identified the young man who went by D.J. yesterday as his best friend.

Moore and two of his other friends yesterday said D.J. lived with his father and his father’s girlfriend at the house.

They also said a couple lived in a trailer on the property. Sheriff Mansfield said this afternoon there were other people who lived on the property who were not involved in any way.

John Allen Booth Jr.

The sheriff’s office is still searching for their suspect, John Allen Booth Jr., 31.

Mansfield said his office continues to work around the clock following up on dozens of leads. They are being assisted by several agencies across the state, he said.

Mansfield said in a news release he wants to remind the public Booth is armed and considered extremely dangerous.

The blue or teal Dodge Diplomat they thought Booth might driving has been found, Mansfield said. Now they are looking for another car he may be driving. It is a turquoise 1995 Saturn Coupe, with a license plate of 319 UEB.

“We need to get a hold of him,” Mansfield said. “My goal is to make that happen without anyone else getting hurt.”

Autopsies on the dead are scheduled for Monday, according to the sheriff’s office.
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For more details on the fatal shootings, either scroll down or click here.

Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield speaks with deputies at the scene today of last night's triple homicide in Onalaska.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

ONALASKA – The sheriff’s office believes the Onalaska man suspected in last night’s triple homicide is in the Spokane area after they got word he made a cell phone call from there about noon today.

John Allen Booth Jr., 31, is being sought in connection with the shooting deaths of three people around 2 o’clock this morning at a home on Wings Way, just off Gore Road in Onalaska.

A fourth person was shot but airlifted to an unidentified hospital. Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield said detectives think the shooting is related to a drug debt collection.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 39-year-old National Guardsman from Chehalis was ordered held on $25,000 bail when he was charged yesterday with second-degree assault of a child.

Steven Grant Williams was arrested by Chehalis police after a Snoqualmie police officer reported the 7-year-old boy’s body was covered in bruises when the child was returned to his grandparents on Tuesday.

Deputy Police Chief Randy Kaut said after the arrest it was one of the most extensive child abuse cases he’s seen in his career.

Authorities describe the injuries to Williams’ girlfriend’s son as two black eyes and including bruises on his back and buttocks. The child told the police officer on Tuesday his mother’s boyfriend had bound him with black tape, covered his eyes and mouth and beat him with a belt, according to charging documents.

The boy, who lives with his paternal grandparents in another county, had been visiting for two or three weeks with his 27-year-old mother and Williams who live in Chehalis.

In Lewis County Superior Court on Friday afternoon, Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes told a judge the photographs paint “quite a different picture” than the words in the charging documents convey.

The whites of the child’s eyes were substantially red and somebody had written in black pen on his buttocks, “stop staring”, Hayes said.

Second-degree assault of a child is a felony with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The class “B” felony involves an adult recklessly or intentionally inflicting substantial bodily harm, or knowingly inflicting harm which by design causes pain or agony equivalent to that produced by torture upon someone younger than age 13.

Defense attorney Bob Schroeter when he argued for lower bail on Friday suggested perhaps his client shouldn’t be charged with a crime.

“These charges only came up when he went back to stay with his grandmother,” Schroeter said.

The Chehalis Police Department on Friday morning said they are investigating the mother as well.

The couple moved to Chehalis about five months ago, after Williams was discharged from the Army, according to Schroeter. The 39-year-old now serves in the Washington National Guard with a unit based in Kent, Schroeter said.

Charging documents say this was the first time the boy had come to visit the pair since they moved to Washington.

The mother works at night and Williams who is otherwise unemployed spent more time with the boy because his mother sleeps during the day, Williams told detectives.

Both the mother and Williams suggested the child’s black eyes might have come from him hitting his head on a lamp in the night or could be related to a bug bite, according to charging documents.

Charging documents offer Williams’ account he gave for some of the bruises as told to Chehalis police detectives.

Williams said he was trying to teach the boy about personal hygiene and when they would have him take a shower before bedtime, and Williams tried to wash the boy’s hair, he had to hold him because the boy would thrash around, scream and yell. The child would bang his shin, elbow or back against the bathtub, he said.

Williams said the bruises on the boy’s wrists and shoulders were from holding him in the shower. During the washings, he never really hit his head that hard, Williams told detectives.

Williams also said he spanked the boy on his bare bottom for lying, and the child bruises easily.

His arraignment is set for Thursday with a court-appointed attorney.