{"id":5470,"date":"2011-03-17T11:27:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T18:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=5470"},"modified":"2011-03-17T11:46:49","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T18:46:49","slug":"three-victims-of-suspected-murder-suicide-in-winlock-kept-low-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=5470","title":{"rendered":"Three victims of suspected murder-suicide in Winlock kept low profile"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2011.0316.winloc.triodead.closer_2\"<\/a>

A husband, wife and their 18-year-old son were found dead of apparent gunshots.<\/p><\/div>\n

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

WINLOCK – The three members of the Walter family who authorities believe died as a result of a murder-suicide were considered\u00a0 thoughtful neighbors who somewhat kept to themselves and weren’t familiar to law enforcement until Tuesday night’s discovery at their Winlock-area home.<\/p>\n

Rodney Walter, 57, Cathy Lee Walter, 65 and their 18-year-old son Devon Walter, along with their family pets, were found dead of apparent gunshots at their two-story log cabin on the 300 block of Frost Road.<\/p>\n

An adult daughter from Tacoma who normally spoke or texted with her mother daily drove to the house when she hadn’t heard from her mother after a couple of days, Lewis County Sheriff’s Steve Mansfield said yesterday.<\/p>\n

Mansfield said he had no idea what might have sparked the tragedy, and neither did the daughter.<\/p>\n

“They seemed to be a family that kept in contact with each other,” he said.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a home known to the sheriff’s office as a drug house or an address they went to for domestic violence calls or anything like that, Mansfield said.<\/p>\n

“That’s what’s so strange about this,” he said. “They were not even on our radar as a family with problems.”<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office has not said which one of the three they think fired the shots, although by yesterday afternoon, they had a “very good idea” of who they think it was, Mansfield said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got several other pieces of this put together, but nothing we can share at this point,” the sheriff said.<\/p>\n

Neighbor Dave Boyer said yesterday he thought they’d lived on the gravel road six or seven years, a place where the next house might be a quarter of a mile away.<\/p>\n

“They were alright, they were nice people,” Boyer said. “They’d wave and say hi.”<\/p>\n

Rodney Walter had a small trucking company. His loaded rig was parked near the family’s home, leading Boyer and his friend Marty Russell to speculate about who did or didn’t pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n

“One and one adds up to two,” Boyer said. “He was leaving on a run, why would he have a load on his truck?”<\/p>\n

The home sits in a rural area of the county east of Interstate 5 and not far from Lewis and Clark State Park.<\/p>\n

An American flag flew from the porch and tie-died curtains covered an upstairs window of the vacant house yesterday afternoon. A small sign in front noted the property was certified wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n

Cathy Walter had a duck pond, according to neighbors and goats in the back which – unlike the three dogs and cat – were not shot dead, Boyer pointed out.<\/p>\n

Devon Walter was remembered as a “little feisty” by Boyer. “To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t go to public school,” he said.<\/p>\n

Devon Walter was briefly a student in the Toledo School District, a long time ago, according to the district superintendent.<\/p>\n

“The system doesn’t show he was enrolled anywhere in the state,” Superintendent Sharon Bower said yesterday. “I don’t know if he was enrolled in another state, or what.”<\/p>\n

The young man attended for three weeks in 2003, when he would have been in middle school, Bower said.<\/p>\n

Neighbor Tim Sweeney recalled Devon when he was younger coming to his place and asking if he could do work for him.<\/p>\n

While he didn’t know them well, the Walters were the kind of neighbors who help each other, Sweeney said.<\/p>\n

He recounted a time when his truck broke down and Rodney Walter stopped, crawled under it and got it going for him. He laughed when remembered a day when Cathy Walter asked for help in rounding up her ducks.<\/p>\n

“They stayed to themselves,” Sweeney said, adding that many of those who reside on the hill live that way.<\/p>\n

Autopsies were scheduled to take place this morning.<\/p>\n

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said however, he didn’t expect any surprises.<\/p>\n

McLeod released the names this morning, noting the official identification of the victims is pending signatures from family members.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

Read “Winlock family and pets shot dead in suspected murder-suicide” from Wednesday March 16, 2011, here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter WINLOCK – The three members of the Walter family who authorities believe died as a result of a murder-suicide were considered\u00a0 thoughtful neighbors who somewhat kept to themselves and weren’t familiar to law enforcement until Tuesday night’s discovery at their Winlock-area home. Rodney Walter, 57, Cathy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10],"class_list":["post-5470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-by-sharyn-l-decker","tag-news-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5470","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5470"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5476,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5470\/revisions\/5476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}