{"id":4850,"date":"2011-02-08T18:12:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T02:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2011-02-08T21:23:12","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T05:23:12","slug":"rochester-drug-dealer-gets-life-for-olympia-slaying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=4850","title":{"rendered":"Rochester drug dealer gets life for Olympia slaying"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2011.0208.maddaus.sentenced_2\"<\/a>

Robert J. Maddaus Jr. sits next to his lawyer in Thurston County Superior Court after he is sentenced to life in prison.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker
\nLewis County Sirens news reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was updated at 7:08 p.m. and 8:36 p.m.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

OLYMPIA – Robert J. Maddaus Jr., 41, of Rochester, was sentenced this afternoon to life in prison without the possibility of release for the first-degree murder of forty-year-old Shaun Allen Peterson.<\/p>\n

\"2011.0115.shaun.peterson.close_2\"<\/a>

Shaun Allen Peterson<\/p><\/div>\n

Peterson died handcuffed and shot on an Olympia street early on Nov. 16, 2009.<\/p>\n

It was a third strike for Maddaus.<\/p>\n

Peterson’s 12-year-old son Joshua was among those who addressed the judge.<\/p>\n

“He may not have been the best dad, but he was mine,” Joshua said.<\/p>\n

Peterson, a father of two who lived in Tumwater before he died, was a drug dealer who was supplied by Maddaus.<\/p>\n

Maddaus’s sentencing in Thurston County Superior Court followed his conviction by a jury last week of murder and numerous other charges related to a weekend of threats as he tried to recover cash and pounds of methamphetamine stolen from his Rochester trailer home.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said Maddaus forced Peterson at gunpoint at the Lacey Fred Meyer to put on the handcuffs and then took him another drug dealer’s apartment on Capitol Way Southeast.<\/p>\n

Peterson’s mother, Judy Peterson, told the judge her son loved the outdoors, wrote poetry and often teased people.<\/p>\n

“He tried several times to get out of the drug world and helped others get out of the drug world,” she said. “He had the biggest heart.”<\/p>\n

Peterson’s sister Gaylin Johnson said there were no words to make sense of the tragedy Maddaus brought on.<\/p>\n

“He’s an arrogant, disrespectful, heartless human being,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n

“Shaun’s death was no accident,” she said. “Bobby handcuffed my brother, shot him repeatedly and left him in the street to die alone.”<\/p>\n

More than 50 individuals crowded into the courtroom, with many standing.<\/p>\n

Maddaus, dressed in white prison garb, declined an opportunity to speak.<\/p>\n

His defense attorney Richard Woodrow offered no words on his client’s behalf.<\/p>\n

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Bruneau told the judge Maddaus had two prior most serious offense convictions: second-degree assault in Lewis County in 1993 and possession with intent to deliver while armed with a deadly weapon in Thurston County in 1995.<\/p>\n

That made it a third strike, and a mandatory life sentence, he said.<\/p>\n

Judge Christine Pomeroy was brief.<\/p>\n

“At this time Mr. Maddaus, I will sentence you to life in prison without the possibility of release,” Pomeroy said. “The victim was handcuffed and vulnerable.”<\/p>\n

Maddaus was sentenced also for two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm and four counts of witness tampering, as well as second-degree assault and attempted kidnapping for an incident three days before the shooting.<\/p>\n

His lawyer said he will appeal.<\/p>\n

“My opinion, I think this case is going to be back in Thurston County for a retrial,” Woodrow said after the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Woodrow filed a motion for a new trial, he said, as his office received a typed but unsigned letter yesterday saying one of the juror’s family members who works in family court printed out and gave Maddaus’s criminal history to the juror.<\/p>\n

If not for the life sentence, the number of months he faced, which included mandatory five-year firearm enhancements, added up to more than 500 months.<\/p>\n

Recently elected Thurston County Prosecutor Jon Tunheim said because Maddaus is a persistent offender – from the state’s three- strikes law – those months basically “get consumed.”<\/p>\n

“I think the community is a whole lot safer with him in prison,” Tunheim said after the proceedings. “That’s kind of the bottom line.”<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022
\nRead about the places in Lewis County Robert Maddaus hid out in the 11 days after the shooting until he was captured, here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter This was updated at 7:08 p.m. and 8:36 p.m. OLYMPIA – Robert J. Maddaus Jr., 41, of Rochester, was sentenced this afternoon to life in prison without the possibility of release for the first-degree murder of forty-year-old Shaun Allen Peterson. Peterson died handcuffed and shot on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4850"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4853,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions\/4853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}