4 arrested, fifth suspect sought in beating, strangulation of man

10-1-2012 Washington:

TACOMA, Wash. -- Four people have been arrested and a fifth suspect is beijung sought in the death of a man found bound, brutally beaten and strangled outside a Graham home last week.

Dean Barker was found dead outside a vacant home in the 22200 block of 124th Ave. E. on the night of Sept. 8. Investigators said 51-year-old Barker's hands were bound behind his back, his mouth taped shut and a red bandanna tied around his neck. An autopsy revealed he had been beaten and strangled.

Four people -- Angela King, 24; William Barry, 33; Justin Mahaffey, 23; and a 17-year-old suspect whom KOMO has chosen not to identify-- are being held on $2 million bail. They have not been charged.

Police are also seeking 30-year-old Jeffrey W. Powell, II, who has been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and kidnapping in the first degree. A warrant has been issued for his arrested

When questioned by investigators, several of the suspects said they abducted and beat Barker because they believe he had molested a toddler, according to the statement of probable case. One suspect claimed Barker had also sexually assaulted a woman.

However, Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said the suspects' claim of vigilante justice for the victim's alleged sex crimes may not be true as investigators have not found any evidence to support either claim.

"Why wait until weeks after the alleged sexual assault? Why take the victim's watch? Why steal the victim's money?" said Lindquist.

After the beating, the suspects took Barker's wallet and split the cash, they told investigators. They also tied a red bandanna around his neck to "mark him, as Mahaffey belongs to a blood gang, the statement said.

The 17-year-old suspect said she participated in the beating, but did not accompany the others to the home where the victim was abandoned. King said she went to the Graham home, but stayed in the car while Mahaffey and Powell walked Barker out of the car. She said Barker was still alive when she and Mahaffey left the scene.

The four suspects are due in court on Tuesday. ..Source.. by KOMO Staff

Arlington death investigated as manslaughter

7-12-2012 Washington:

ARLINGTON -- Detectives believe the death of an Everett-area man in Arlington last month could be a potential case of manslaughter.

Martin Pickett, 48, died after some kind of altercation in a parking lot in the 16800 block of Smokey Point Boulevard, police said.

A passerby spotted Pickett's body about 5:30 a.m. June 30.

He was lying in a pool of blood, and appeared to have a serious head wound, according to a search warrant filed recently in Cascade District Court.

Pickett and two other homeless men had been hanging out in the lot the night before he was found, court papers show.

Police dispatchers received a 911 call for a noise complaint in the area about 11 p.m., Arlington city spokeswoman Kristin Banfield said Wednesday.

A patrol officer responded and told the men they could not drink in public and that they needed to quiet down. The men agreed to do so, and the officer left.

Detectives have interviewed the two other men who were there that night, Banfield said.

They believe Pickett had been involved in some sort of struggle with one of them, Nial G. Harris, 52, shortly before Pickett died.

No arrests have been made in the case. Investigators are awaiting autopsy and toxicology reports from the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office. Those reports likely will shed light on the circumstances surrounding Pickett's death.

Pickett had significant criminal history in Snohomish County dating back to 1982.

As an adult, he had seven felony and 27 misdemeanor convictions. Most of the misdemeanors were for unlawful camping, trespassing and possessing drug paraphernalia.

He also was supposed to register as a sex offender for a first-degree rape conviction in 1987.

Pickett had been arrested in Marysville as recently as April, when prosecutors alleged that he assaulted a woman after they were drinking together underneath a bridge.

They alleged that Pickett struck the woman in the head with a rock after she declined his sexual advances. ..Source.. by Rikki King, Herald Writer

Two sex offenders shot dead in Washington

This is to document one (Gary Lee Blanton) of two deaths on this date by the same perpetrator, Patrick Drum (Facebook Account). The story of the other sex offender murdered (Jerry Wayne Ray) is HERE

Note 6-13: See story of this date below "He had obtained names with research he had done with a computer," sheriff's detective Sgt. Lyman Moores said." Accordingly, the registry played a part in these two deaths!

Note: 7-1: Drum, while in jail awaiting prosecution for murder, stabbed another RSO with a makshift instrument.

Note: 12-4-13: See Followup story on Patrick Drum.

6-4-2012 Washington:

PORT ANGELES, Wash. -- A man with a reported hatred of sex offenders was arrested Sunday in Port Angeles for allegedly killing two men, both registered sex offenders.

Patrick Drum, 34, was arrested after a three-and-a-half-hour manhunt in dense woods with the help of dozens of law enforcement officers and a police helicopter.

Victims Jerry Wayne Ray, 56, and Gary Lee Blanton, 28, were found dead from gunshot wounds earlier at two separate houses.

Detectives said evidence from the crime scenes indicated Drum had an animosity toward sex offenders. The Associated Press reported a note was left behind in which Drum stated he hated sex offenders and "it had to be done."

Ray and Blanton were both Level II sex offenders.

The situation began early Sunday when Clallam County Sheriff's deputies found Ray dead in a home at 31 Heuhslein Road.

At the same time, a suspicious person report on Blue Mountain Road between Sequim and Port Angeles led detectives to an abandoned car. Inside the car, detectives said a note tied Drum to Ray's death.

Further evidence pointed officers to a house in Sequim, located at 5011 Sequim Dungeness Way, where Blanton's body was found.

A suspect search was launched, which eventually uncovered Drum in an area near Gellor Road and Blue Mountain Road.

Detectives said Drum knew both Ray and Blanton. Blanton recently moved into the house on Sequim Dungeness Way rented by Drum. ..Source.. by KING 5 News

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two sex offenders shot dead in Washington

PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County Sheriff's Office arrested Patrick B. Drum, 34, of Sequim on Sunday in connection with the murder of two registered sex offenders with whom he was acquainted. Sheriff W.L. Benedict said that according to evidence, Drum had a "particular animus toward sex offenders."

Early Sunday morning, authorities responded to 31 Heuhslein Road, East of Port Angeles. They found Jerry Wayne Ray, 57, dead of gunshot wounds in the woods.

At about the same time, deputies responded to a suspicious person near a house at milepost 6 on Blue Mountain Road, south of State Route 101 between Sequim and Port Angeles. There they found an abandoned car, and in it a note that tied the car's driver, Drum, to the crime scene where Ray was found dead.

Multiple agencies were called in to set up a containment that included a helicopter and a pair of K9 units. Drum was eventually captured in a densely forested area, after a man saw him and reported him to police. He was hiding in a shed.

During the search for Drum, police gathered evidence that led them to a second crime scene. There they found Gary Blanton, 28, dead from gunshot wounds. Blanton rented a room from Drum.

He was captured without incident in a woodshed off Blue Mountain Road after a resident spotted him. Drum had been considered armed and dangerous. Local residents were instructed via a reverse 911 system to stay inside and lock doors and windows.

"Scared, this little community," said Port Angeles resident Maxine King. 'We don`t want anybody like that to invade us. Drum is being held in Clallam County Jail in Port Angeles. ..Source.. by Kirsten Joyce Q13 FOX News Online

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man suspected in slayings of 2 sex offenders

The Clallam County sheriff says a man suspected of shooting two sex offenders to death left a note saying he hated sex offenders and "it had to be done."

Sheriff Bill Benedict says investigators believe Patrick Drum shot Gary Lee Blanton on Saturday night at a home Drum was renting near Sequim. Blanton was renting a room in the home.

Benedict says Drum then drove to the home of Jerry Wayne Ray in the nearby Agnew area where he was killed.

The sheriff says Drum abandoned a rental car and reports of a suspicious man in the area Sunday led deputies to respond. The note in the car led to the victims and identified Drum as a suspect.

He was tracked and arrested in a wooded area after a 3-hour manhunt that included officers of the Sheriff's Office, U.S. Border Patrol, State Patrol, Port Angeles and Sequim police departments, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state Fish and Wildlife plus a helicopter from the federal Customs and Border Patrol agency, the Peninsula Daily News reported. ..Source.. by DOUG ESSER

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Second body found in Sequim; suspect remains in jail

PORT ANGELES -- Clallam County sheriff's deputies are now saying that two homicides were committed Sunday at separate locations, and that the 34-year-old man they believe committed both killings remains in Clallam County jail today.

Patrick B. Drum is being held for investigation into the slayings of Jerry Wayne Ray, 56, and Gary Lee Blanton, 28, both of whom the Clallam County Sheriff's Office said were Level III registered sex offenders, according to a statement issued by the Sheriff's Office.

Ray's body was found with multiple gunshot wounds at 31 Heuhslein Road in the Agnew area east of Port Angeles, the statement said.

Not long after that discovery Sunday morning, deputies responded to a suspicious-person call on Blue Mountain Road about six miles south of U.S. Highway 101 between Sequim and Port Angeles. There, deputies found an abandoned car with a note that tied the car's driver and suspicious person, Drum, to the Heuhslein Road crime scene, according to deputies.

Following a 3.5-hour manhunt that included officers of the Sheriff's Office, U.S. Border Patrol, State Patrol, Port Angeles and Sequim police departments, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state Fish and Wildlife plus a helicopter from the federal Customs and Border Patrol agency, Drum was captured near Milepost 0.6 on Geillor Road east of Blue Mountain Road.

The area is densely forested with many ravines and wetlands.

During the search for Drum, investigators acted on a tip and Sequim police units entered a residence at 5011 Sequim-Dungeness Way and found Blanton dead of several gunshot wounds.

Investigators said Drum knew both victims and had a "particular animus" toward sex offenders. He recently moved into the Sequim-Dungeness Way house rented by Drum.

More details are expected this afternoon. ..Source.. by Peninsula Daily News

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No bail: WA man accused of killing 2 sex offenders

6-5-2012 Washington:

A Washington man accused of fatally shooting two convicted sex offenders on the Olympic Peninsula indicated he didn't plan to stop with two, a prosecutor told a judge on Monday.

A Washington man accused of fatally shooting two convicted sex offenders on the Olympic Peninsula indicated he didn't plan to stop with two, a prosecutor told a judge on Monday.

Patrick Drum, 34, of Sequim, remained jailed without bail after a Clallam County Superior Court hearing.

A signed note Drum left in a rental car said he hated sex offenders and "it had to be done," the county sheriff said Monday.

Drum was arrested Sunday for investigation of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the weekend deaths of Gary Lee Blanton Jr., 28, and Jerry W. Ray, 56.

The arrested man "had stated his intent not to stop with two victims but to continue as long as he could until he was stopped by law enforcement," County Prosecutor Deb Kelly told Judge George Wood, according to the Peninsula Daily News.

A probable cause statement from the sheriff's office said "Drum also stated that he had intended on driving to Jefferson County where another sex offender resided, with the intent to kill him, too."

"Frankly, I'm concerned about the vigilante aspect," Kelly said.

Kelly told the judge she plans to seek charges of aggravated first-degree murder.

Drum, who yawned repeatedly during the hearing, told the judge he wanted to defend himself.

An aggravated murder conviction would carry the possibility of a death sentence. Wood appointed a lawyer to represent Drum.

A bail hearing was scheduled Wednesday.

A convicted felon, Drum is known to police in Sequim and Port Angeles as well as Clallam County deputies, Sheriff Bill Benedict said. The man served four years for drug-related offenses at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, the newspaper reported.

At a news conference, the sheriff warned anyone considering continuing the violence.

"Anyone who is interested in taking things into their own hands and deciding to attack sex offenders in the community, we will deal with them very strongly," Benedict said.

Investigators say Drum shot Blanton on Saturday night at a home Drum was renting near Sequim. Blanton was renting a room in the home.

Drum then drove to Ray's home a few miles away where Ray was killed early Sunday morning, Benedict said.

For some reason, authorities say, Drum abandoned a rental car he had been driving and was seen on foot in the remote area of the northern Olympic Peninsula. Reports of a suspicious man in the area Sunday led deputies to respond. They found the car and the note inside that led to the victims and identified Drum as a suspect.

The note was "apologizing to police for what he had done," Benedict said, and it said, "It had to be done."

Drum was arrested after a manhunt involving about 65 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies. Dozens of officers responded to the area, and Drum was tracked down by a dog team and flushed out of a wooded area by a Customs and Border Protection helicopter Sunday.

Drum knew both men were sex offenders. Both were shot multiple times, the sheriff said, adding Drum was armed with a 9mm pistol when he was arrested.

"He took full responsibility for `taking care of some problems,'" Benedict said Monday. ..Source.. by DOUG ESSER

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vigilante justice is anything but

6-4-2012:

For the record, it didn’t have to be done.

I refer to the fatal shooting of two sex offenders, Gary Blanton and Jerry Ray, on the Olympic Peninsula over the weekend. The Trib report details a brief killing spree allegedly planned and carried out by one Patrick Drum, who left a message inside his abandoned car stating “it had to be done.”

If “it” refers to killing, a highly likely assumption, then I strongly disagree.

This story has already generated comments praising Drum for allegedly killing two people. The reason is clear – when it comes to sex offenders the mob is quick to reach for pitchforks and torches.

It is easy to understand the scorn our society holds for those who prey on the bodies and souls of the most vulnerable among us. When I have been required to interview these sleazy degenerates, the term that would best describe this experience (at least one suitable for newsprint) would be revulsion. Extreme revulsion.

Sure, plenty of people may want to cheer when two felons, convicted of sex crimes, get what their killer considers their due. That, however, is an instinct better left for those species below us on the food chain.

Vigilante killing is a violation of every painful step our society has taken towards a fair judicial process. We are still taking those steps, because obviously our system is not the blind and objective pinnacle of justice to which all men and women can turn. We have a long way to go towards that point, but we have made much progress over the years.

Our criminal justice system views the taking of a life as the consummate expression of inhumanity. Perhaps more to the point, homicide is an act of utter hopelessness. This might be better understood by people who have actually witnessed the act or aftermath of violent death. From that perspective the lifeless form of another human being is a visceral and stark reality. In the case of a homicide scene, the killer’s presence is as palpable as the body itself. It is a shocking and abhorrent image.

Such were my thoughts when I read the article on the Olympic peninsula killings, which included reader comments such as, “the gene pool needs a little cleaning.” The only real message in this piece of misplaced bravado is the depressing sense that life has little value, a theme we typically attribute to third world countries.

Our justice system, for all its faults, is the product of our collective will, and it was created to repudiate this notion. Life is sacred and people deserve a chance to defend themselves from the presumptive judgment of one person.

Now that he has been arrested for homicide, Patrick Drum should consider that fact. ..Source.. by Brian O'Neill

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two sex offenders shot dead in Clallam County

6-4--20012:

PORT ANGELES – Police in Clallam County say the man accused of killing two sex offenders may have been planning at least one other in a neighboring county.

Clallam County Detective Sergeant Lyman Moores said Patrick Drum, 34, shot and killed the two men at two different homes sometime Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Police said Drum, a convicted felon, was spotted around 6:30 Sunday morning, in an area around Blue Mountain Road near Port Angeles. A homeowner had called police to say Drum was on their porch and acting strange.

The call came around the same time the wife of Gary Blanton called police to say she feared for her husband’s well being. Blanton, a registered sex offender, had recently moved in with Drum.

After a massive manhunt involving dozens of deputies in the dense woods near Port Angeles, police captured Drum. They say he admitted shooting killing Blanton and another registered sex offender named Jerry Ray outside Port Angeles.

Moores said Drum admitted he killed both because of their sex offender status.

"He has made a statement to detectives that these two were sex offenders and that was the motivation," said Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict.

Detectives said Drum intended to kill a third sex offender in Jefferson County, but they gave few clues as to why he chose the men. Detectives were looking for a computer Drum may have recently sold to see if he was researching his victims.

Moores said a rental car, registered to Drum, was found on Blue Mountain Road. It contained an empty box of 9mm bullets and a note expressing he was “sorry for the disturbances.” Police said there were empty 9mm casings near Blanton’s body, and Drum was carrying a 9mm handgun at the time of his arrest.

Neighbors of both the murdered men in the rural part of the Olympic Peninsula were reluctant to say what they thought of the vigilante action, but the county's top cop dismissed any other notion besides cold premeditated murder.

"Anyone who is taking justice in to their own hands and attacking sex offender in this community, we'll take care of them very, very strongly," said Benedict.

Drum has a lengthy criminal history, which includes drugs and assault. He is being held on $2 million bail, pending likely murder charges later this week. ..Source.. by King5 News

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wife of slain sex offender: 'Nobody has any compassion'

6-5-2012:

The wife of a convicted sex offender who was targeted and killed over the weekend said Tuesday she’s sickened by people who have called the man accused in the crime a hero.

Gary Blanton was one of two sex offenders shot and killed by Patrick Drum in Clallam County, investigators said.

“My husband wasn’t a predator,” Leslie Blanton said. “My husband was the victim of a horrible murder and nobody has any compassion about that. They don’t care.”

In a statement, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office said evidence suggested that Drum “had a particular animus towards sex offenders.” Police said Drum wanted to kill more of them.

“My husband’s a good man,” Leslie Blanton said. “He’s been there for us, and now we don’t have him and he’ll never come home.”

She said her and her husband, who was a Level 2 sex offender, have two children who will now never know their father.

“He’s not God,” Leslie Blanton said of Drum. “He doesn’t get to decide when people get to live and die. What kind of hero makes babies victims? ‘Cause that’s what my kids are now.”

Drum remains locked up in the Clallam County Jail. ..Source.. by KIROTV.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man accused of killing sex offenders due in court

6-13-2012: In the morning

The suspect accused of killing two Clallam County sex offenders purely because of their status will be in court Wednesday to answer to charges.

Patrick Drum, 34, is charged with two counts of aggravated murder, accused of shooting and killing Gary Blanton and Jerry Ray, both Level Two sex offenders.

Officers said Drum sought out Ray, 56, and Blanton, 29, at their homes. Blanton had recently just moved into a house in Sequim with Drum.

After Drum was arrested in the woods between Sequim and Port Angeles, Clallam County Sheriff's deputies said the convicted felon may have been planning to kill another sex offender in nearby Jefferson County.

Drum has a lengthy criminal history, including drugs and assault. ..Source.. by KING 5 News

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Judge refuses attempted guilty plea in killings

6-13-2012 Washington: In the PM after court:

A Washington man charged with aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of two convicted sex offenders was prevented from pleading guilty Wednesday — although he tried.

"I don't need this court," Patrick Drum, 34, of the Olympic Peninsula town of Sequim, told Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams. "I'm guilty. I want to plead guilty."

The judge told Drum that under state law, he could not yet accept that plea, the Peninsula Daily News reported (http://is.gd/blJZKl ).

Williams noted County Prosecutor Deb Kelly has said she's considering whether to seek the death penalty. She has another 30 days from Wednesday's arraignment to make that decision.

Aggravated murder is punishable in Washington by either death or life in prison without parole.

Gary Lee Blanton Jr. and Jerry W. Ray were killed in separate shootings earlier this month. The county sheriff has said a signed note Drum left in a rental car said he hated sex offenders and "it had to be done."

Drum's attempted plea surprised both Kelly and Drum's court-appointed lawyer, Karen Unger.

"I don't recall ever having a murder defendant try to plead guilty at an arraignment," said Kelly, who has worked in the county prosecutor's office for 22 years.

Drum told Williams he wanted to represent himself. He said the same thing at an earlier hearing to a different judge, but that judge appointed Unger to represent him. Unger said Drum had not told her about his plan to plead guilty.

A probable cause statement from the sheriff's office, filed earlier with the court, said Drum had stated he planned to drive to nearby Jefferson County and kill another sex offender there.

"He had obtained names with research he had done with a computer," sheriff's detective Sgt. Lyman Moores said Wednesday.

Investigators say Drum shot Blanton, 28, on the night of June 2 at a home Drum was renting. Blanton was renting a room in the home.

Drum then drove to Ray's home a few miles away where Ray, 56, was killed early on June 3, Sheriff Bill Benedict has said.

For some reason, Drum abandoned a rental car he had been driving and was seen on foot in the remote area of the northern Olympic Peninsula. Reports of a suspicious man in the area brought deputies, who found the car and the note inside that led to the victims and identified Drum as a suspect. Drum was arrested later on June 3.

State Corrections Department records show Drum has served time for convictions that include burglary and drug possession. ..Source.. by Palm Beach Post

---

Patrick Drum Sentenced To Life In Prison For Murdering Sex Offenders Gary Blanton, Jerry Ray

9-19-2012:

A man who killed two registered sex offenders in Washington this summer, because he said "it had to be done," was sentenced to life without parole for the vigilante murders yesterday.

Patrick Drum, 34, first killed his roommate, 28-year-old Gary Blanton in their Sequim home on June 2. After shooting Blanton, Drum drove to Jerry Ray's house, killing him the following morning.

Witnesses called authorities to report seeing a suspicious man in a wooded area of the Olympic Peninsula. The search turned up a rental car abandoned by Drum and containing a note assuming responsibility for "taking care of some problems," the Associated Press reported.

The note also said "it had to be done," according to Fox News.

Police used dogs to track Drum down, ending a three-hour manhunt. Once captured by officers, Drum told a detective he gunned down the two men "because they were sex offenders," and would have killed more if he hadn't been stopped, NBC News said.

Blanton was found dead inside the padlocked home he shared with Drum. Blanton had been convicted of rape as a teenager. His wife claimed that he'd been falsely convicted for having consensual sex with a freshman when he was a senior in high school, the Sequim Gazette reported.

Ray pleaded guilty in 2002 to raping a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old, the Gazette said.

Drum has a previous criminal record too, including convictions for burglary and drug charges, Reuters reported.

Attention from the killing earned Drum the support of some fans who have stalked the Blantons' home and spat on them, Blanton's wife said, according to KOMO.

“It was never my intent to hurt the families involved," Drum said in court, according to the Peninsula Daily News. "That's like collateral damage."

There was extra security on hand in the courtroom Tuesday to protect Drum, Fox News reported. ..Source.. by Michael McLaughlin

Two sex offenders shot dead in Washington

This is to document one (Jerry Wayne Ray) of two deaths on this date by the same perpetrator, Patrick Drum (Facebook Account).

Note 6-13-12: See story of this date below "He had obtained names with research he had done with a computer," sheriff's detective Sgt. Lyman Moores said." Accordingly, the registry played a part in these two deaths!

Note: 7-1-12: Drum, while in jail awaiting prosecution for murder, stabbed another RSO with a makshift instrument.

Note: 12-4-13: See Followup story on Patrick Drum.

6-4-2012 Washington:

PORT ANGELES, Wash. -- A man with a reported hatred of sex offenders was arrested Sunday in Port Angeles for allegedly killing two men, both registered sex offenders.

Patrick Drum, 34, was arrested after a three-and-a-half-hour manhunt in dense woods with the help of dozens of law enforcement officers and a police helicopter.

Victims Jerry Wayne Ray, 56, and Gary Lee Blanton, 28, were found dead from gunshot wounds earlier at two separate houses.

Detectives said evidence from the crime scenes indicated Drum had an animosity toward sex offenders. The Associated Press reported a note was left behind in which Drum stated he hated sex offenders and "it had to be done."

Ray and Blanton were both Level II sex offenders.

The situation began early Sunday when Clallam County Sheriff's deputies found Ray dead in a home at 31 Heuhslein Road.

At the same time, a suspicious person report on Blue Mountain Road between Sequim and Port Angeles led detectives to an abandoned car. Inside the car, detectives said a note tied Drum to Ray's death.

Further evidence pointed officers to a house in Sequim, located at 5011 Sequim Dungeness Way, where Blanton's body was found.

A suspect search was launched, which eventually uncovered Drum in an area near Gellor Road and Blue Mountain Road.

Detectives said Drum knew both Ray and Blanton. Blanton recently moved into the house on Sequim Dungeness Way rented by Drum. ..Source.. by KING 5 News

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two sex offenders shot dead in Washington

PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County Sheriff's Office arrested Patrick B. Drum, 34, of Sequim on Sunday in connection with the murder of two registered sex offenders with whom he was acquainted. Sheriff W.L. Benedict said that according to evidence, Drum had a "particular animus toward sex offenders."

Early Sunday morning, authorities responded to 31 Heuhslein Road, East of Port Angeles. They found Jerry Wayne Ray, 57, dead of gunshot wounds in the woods.

At about the same time, deputies responded to a suspicious person near a house at milepost 6 on Blue Mountain Road, south of State Route 101 between Sequim and Port Angeles. There they found an abandoned car, and in it a note that tied the car's driver, Drum, to the crime scene where Ray was found dead.

Multiple agencies were called in to set up a containment that included a helicopter and a pair of K9 units. Drum was eventually captured in a densely forested area, after a man saw him and reported him to police. He was hiding in a shed.

During the search for Drum, police gathered evidence that led them to a second crime scene. There they found Gary Blanton, 28, dead from gunshot wounds. Blanton rented a room from Drum.

Police: Killer accused man of molestation, gunned him down

Posted in Related Deaths

1-26-2012 Washington:

A Des Moines man accused of killing a man after accusing him of molesting children has been charged with murder.

King County prosecutors contend Denzil R. Moore shot Thomas R. Humphries at point-blank range during an argument inside Moore’s pickup truck on Jan. 10. The Des Moines man and a purported accomplice are alleged to have then dumped Humphries’ body at a vacant house in Auburn, where it lay undiscovered for days.

“Moore effectively executed a man,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Don Raz told the court. Moore, 41, has threatened to kill others who know the details of the killing and is believed to have a list of people to kill, the prosecutor added.

A review of court records showed Humphries has not been arrested for or convicted of sex crimes in Washington. He was not listed on the county sex offender registry.

Police learned of the killing just before 11 a.m. on Jan. 14, when a gardener at a vacant Auburn home called 911 to report a body, Detective Buie Arneson told the court.

Mowing the lawn at the home in the 11100 block of Southeast 304th Street, the gardener noticed Humphries in the grass behind the home. When he found the 57-year-old man was dead, he called the police.

Officers responded to the scene and found Humphries partially stripped with his jacket pulled over his face, his pants around his knees and wounds to his torso and head. Two .22-caliber casings were found amid a pile of broken safety glass nearby.

A medical examiner later determined Humphries had been shot three times in the left shoulder; one of the bullets pierced his heart. He was also shot in the back of the head. A fifth round is believed to have struck his belt.

Having identified Humphries by his fingerprints, police contacted a friend of his the following day who said she’d last seen him on Jan. 9, five days before the body was found. At the same time, a King County deputy sheriff notified Auburn police that he had a witness to the killing – Glae M. Roland – in custody.

According to court documents, Roland, 34, told investigators that on Jan. 10 he met up with Moore, whom he knew well, and Humphries at a Goodwill store in Des Moines hoping to get a ride to work. All three climbed into Moore’s GMC pickup and headed toward Roland’s place of employment in Kent.

On the way, though, Moore began accusing Humphries of molesting children, Arneson told the court. As the argument intensified, the detective continued, Moore pulled a .22-caliber pistol and pointed it at Humphries.

Moore pulled into a gas station, Ernie’s Truck Stop, around 2:30 p.m. or 3 p.m. and shot Humphries at once, Arneson continued. Moore then drove from the area with Humphries mortally injured in his passenger’s seat.

Continuing to drive, Moore shot Humphries four more times as Roland looked on from the rear passenger’s seat, according to charging documents.

“Moore told Roland that he needed to call in and say that he would be late because they needed to get rid of the body,” Arneson told the court.

Moore then drove to the vacant home and, with Roland’s help, dumped Humphries’ body on the grass, the detective said in court documents.

Following the killing, Moore tossed some of Humphries’ belongings in the Green River, then spent $5 taken from Humphries at a convenience store, Arneson added.

Police contend the men returned to the house the night after the body was discovered to hide it better.

Gloved and masked, the men found the property had been cleared and that the body was gone, the detective told the court. They searched the area with flashlights and noticed orange spray paint marks left behind by death investigators.

Concerned that police had discovered Humphries, the men repainted the truck and concocted a story they would tell police if arrested, Roland allegedly told investigators.

Having taken Roland’s statement, officers arrested Moore at his Des Moines home. Moore allegedly told police the fabricated story Roland said they rehearsed after finding the body had been removed.

According to charging documents, Moore threatened to kill Roland, his family and at least one woman who learned of the killing if any of them spoke to police.

Jailed on $1 million bail, Moore has been charged with first-degree murder. Roland, who also remains jailed, has been charged with rendering criminal assistance to Moore following the crime. ..Source.. by LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Man killed at 26th and Jefferson identified as Shaun Harris, 43

9-26-2011 Washington:

The man apparently beaten to death at 26th and Jefferson September 22 has been identified as Shaun Ansar Harris, 43.

Police were called to the scene just after 6:30 a.m. after someone reported an altercation inside a vehicle. Harris was found outside a red Mercedes-Benz convertible with a fatal head wound. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died.

At the September 22 meeting of the East Precinct Advisory Council (EastPAC), precinct commander James Dermody said police do not believe the killing was related to the neighborhood or Garfield High School, which is one block away from the site of the attack.

According to the King County sex offender website, Harris was convicted of third degree rape in 1995. He also has a lengthy list of aliases. ..Source.. by Tom Fucoloro

---------------------------------------------------------------

Man beaten to death near Central Area school

9-22-2011 Oregon:

A man was fatally beaten in Seattle's Central Area early Thursday, and homicide detectives are working to identify a suspect, according to police.

Several people called 911 to report an assault shortly after 6:30 a.m. at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue East and 26th Avenue, department spokesman Mark Jamieson said.

When officers arrived, they found the victim with obvious head injuries lying on the ground near a red Mercedes-Benz convertible, he said.

The man was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died, Jamieson said.

Crime-scene investigators spent much of the morning processing the scene, located a block east of Garfield High School. Seattle police said there was no connection to the high school.

Jamieson said he could not say whether the assault occurred inside the vehicle or outside on the street.

The victim's name was not released Thursday by the King County Medical Examiner's Office. An autopsy is scheduled for Friday.

"We believe the victim knew the suspect," said Renee Witt, a police spokeswoman. "We don't think this is some random act." ..Source.. by Seattle Times staff

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part of a larger article on 9-22-2011:

Harris, a 43-year-old sex offender, was found unresponsive and bleeding from the head in the Central District. Hours before his death, police contacted Harris on a suspicious circumstances call.

At 4:06 a.m. that morning, police contacted Harris in a red Mercedes-Benz. A woman also was inside. Police questioned then, but released the pair because there was no evidence of a crime. Two and a half hours later, a man was walking his dog on 25th Avenue toward Jefferson Street when he saw what he thought was a silver Cadillac make a fast turn east on Jefferson. When the man got to the intersection, the pedestrian saw a person about a block away, standing outside Harris' red Mercedes, striking a person in the driver's seat.

The man told police the silver Cadillac that passed him was parked with its taillights on directly across from the Mercedes-Benz. East Precinct officers found Harris on the ground outside the Mercedes about a block from Garfield High School. He was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, where he died about 7:30 a.m.

The woman who had been with Harris told homicide investigators that after being released, she and Harris drove around until he eventually pulled over at 26th and Jefferson and tried to have sexual relations with her, which she didn't want. She told detectives she left after calling her sister, and left Harris sitting in his car.

Detectives noticed a possible blood stain on the lower portion of the woman's pants, according to a search warrant affidavit. In late September, investigators searched the Infinity she drove and recovered clothes, shoes and paperwork. But police not named anyone as a suspect.

....

'Partial body' identified as 53-year-old Seattle man

7-16-2011 Washington:

SEATTLE - A "partial body" that was found at a recycling business in the SoDo industrial area last week has been identified as a 53-year-old Seattle man.

The King County Medical Examiner said Friday that the victim has been identified as Donald S. Meyer of Seattle.

His cause of death was not immediately released.

His torso turned up July 8 at a recycling plant at 7201 East Marginal Way South.

A police spokesman said the body was mixed in with material from a construction site down the street that had been brought in for recycling, and that workers spotted it as it moved down a conveyor belt used for sorting materials.

Detectives determined that the death was not the result of an industrial accident and that the body had been brought to the plant from another location. A homicide investigation was launched immediately.

The 53-year-old victim was a registered sex offender, which may explain why his DNA profile was in the database.

Matt Bazemore says the same day police found the torso, a forensics team showed up in his Ballard neighborhood to sift through this construction zone.

"Three or four police cars showed up all at once trailing the truck back from the recycling plant," he said.

Police won't say whether that search is related to Meyer's murder.

Bazemore made the link based on the questions detectives asked of him and his neighbors.

"I knew that through talking to police that day, that it was recycling, that's where they found it... because I talked to the crew about what they were doing with their garbage and it was being sorted through."

Where or how Meyer was killed is still unclear, but it does appear possible that the killer placed his partial body in a construction debris pile to be hauled away.

Police won't confirm those details, saying only that the case remains an open murder investigation and they are running down all leads.

Meyer was convicted for indecent liberties and had prior arrests for petty theft and drugs. But that sheds little light on what made him a target for murder. ..Source.. by KOMO Staff

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Why an assailant scattered body parts is a mystery for police

4-12-2012:

Human remains found at two separate sites — at a recycling center in Georgetown and underneath the Ship Canal Bridge — have been identified through forensic testing as the body parts of Donald S. Meyer, a 53-year-old Ballard man who was reported missing last year.

Someone went to great lengths to dispose of the body of Donald S. Meyer, a 53-year-old Ballard man who was reported missing last year, police said.

Part of Meyer's body was found at a recycling center in Georgetown a month after his June disappearance. Other remains were discovered in December on a hillside beneath the Ship Canal Bridge.

Police sources said Thursday that Meyer's former roommate, who has been questioned, is considered a person of interest. However, police did not officially confirm that report and no arrests have been made.

Meyer had previous run-ins with the law. In 1991, he was convicted of drug possession and he was charged with second-degree rape the following year. He pleaded guilty to an amended charge of indecent liberties, according to court documents.

Although he was in jail for several years, according to court documents, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) said he did not spend time in prison. He was under DOC supervision for his indecent-liberties conviction, but his case file was closed in 2003, according to agency spokesman Chad Lewis.

Meyer was reported missing in June by three friends, according to court documents. Police said he reportedly sold marijuana.

Several of the people who spoke to police after his disappearance said they were also customers who had gone by his house after failing to reach him on the phone, according to a search warrant filed in King County Superior Court.

Meyer's friends also told police that they'd found his phone, which had not been used for a week.

That in itself was unusual because Meyer used his phone daily in his line of business, police said.

"They kept going to his house and his roommate kept telling them 'he's not here right now, which did not seem right,' " according to a police source.

When police first went to investigate, they found one room in Meyer's home had been stripped bare, the walls repainted and the carpet removed, police sources said.

Crime-scene investigators were called in after small drops of blood were spotted in a corner of the room and more blood that was "not visible to the naked eye" was found with the aid of special chemicals, according to the search warrant.

About a month after Meyer disappeared, a human torso was found on a conveyor belt by employees at a recycling center in Georgetown, police said. Police said the body part was tracked to a commercial recycling bin at a home that was undergoing renovation in Meyer's neighborhood.

In December, a group of people who were attempting to reach out to homeless people in the Eastlake area stumbled across a bag containing a decomposed human leg underneath the Ship Canal Bridge, according to police. More bags of body parts were found scattered across the sloped hill.

Seattle police spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said Thursday that police do not believe that there are any additional dump sites.

Not long before Meyer's death, he had asked a roommate to move out, sources said. Police records indicate that Meyers' friends said that the roommate was odd and had a "bad vibe."

The former roommate has been interviewed, according to police sources, and is considered a person of interest. Whitcomb would not confirm whether police had a person of interest in the slaying or if an arrest was imminent.

"It is very much an active and ongoing case," Whitcomb said.

He urged people with information about Meyer or his slaying to call the SPD tip line at 206-233-5000. ..Source.. by Christine Clarridge

School of Crime: Killer Morris Goldberg, 78, Shows How To Talk Your Way Back into Prison Cell

12-18-2009 Washington:

Getting out of prison early takes a special effort, and Morris "Mel" Goldberg has provided his fellow prisoners with a lesson on how not to make it.

"If you feel it is better for me to remain incarcerated," the 78-year-old Monroe inmate recently told the state Clemency and Pardons Board, "so be it."

Goldberg was seeking a pardon from a 26-year-term, based on his age, health and promise he is a changed man. He was convicted with his wife of the Nov. 18, 1991 Spokane murder of their son-in-law Peter Zeihen, who they - without proof - suspected was a child molester.

But Goldberg, via phone to the board, seemed to drum up little sympathy and provided some classically lame responses - explaining he'd been asleep a few moments earlier.

About "this homicide that occurred," he said, "I errored in my judgment." He was sorry, but he wasn't the "one who actually performed the function," his wife did, blowing most of Zeihen's head off with a shotgun. (Zeihen was wearing a bullet-proof vest after the grandmother and grandfather tried but failed to shoot him earlier).

Board chair Margaret Smith pointed out that at his trial, Goldberg admitted to his role in the shooting and said "I'd do it again." Goldberg responded: "I was still under the influence of my ex-wife at the time." He now regrets participating. "I would gladly yield up my own life if he could have his [back]..." he said. His Heavenly Father, Goldberg said, has changed him from "that creature that I was."

When told the board had received many letters in opposition to his release because he "had struck fear in the heart of people," Goldberg responded: "I have? Should have been my wife!"

The now-grown daughter whom Zeihen allegedly molested gave a brief, dramatic statement supporting her grandfather: "Words are cheap," she said sitting before the board, "and you may not believe what I have to say, but he was right. The abuse did happen. The evidence was thrown out of court. That man saved my life. I wouldn't of had him do anything different."

But Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker told the board there was "no evidence ever found of any child molestation" and the grandparents were "wrongly and mistakenly" informed. He also noted that Goldberg's wife Joann Peterson (now doing 25 years) wanted Zeihen to see who was about to kill him, and made him look down the barrel as she fired. Because Zeihen was given no mercy, said Tucker, neither of the killers have earned it.

Goldberg still wanted out - maybe. "Whether I remain in prison or not is irrelevant to me, because I'm going to wind up, in too few short years, underground anyway. So all these things are just temporal, my life is temporal, just like yours [the board's]. So was Peter Zeihen's, apparently."

Cough.

"If you feel it is better for me to remain incarcerated, so be it. I am tired. I am tired of life itself. I really have no more comments to make. You make your decision."

They quickly did, stamping his file "Don't pardon." It was unanimous. ..Source.. by Rick Anderson in Crime & Punishment

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Killer should remain behind bars – pass it on

11-5-2009 Washington:

Today’s column in three easy steps.

1. Morris “Mel” Goldberg should rot in prison.

2. I want to do all I can to make that happen.

3. Help me advocate for Goldberg’s continued incarceration in a letter to the Washington attorney general’s office. The deadline is Nov. 13. Sign your name “concerned citizen” if you have any worries about identifying yourself.

Then mail your letter to …

Spokane County Prosecutor
c/o Annette Ingham
Victim/Witness Manager
1100 W. Mallon Ave.
Spokane, WA 99260

Internet users should put their remarks to the attorney general in a Word file and e-mail it to Ingham at aingham@ spokanecounty.org. She will forward the correspondence she receives to the AG’s office.

Now, while you’re thinking over my call to action, let me tell you about this slug, Mel Goldberg.

He drove the stolen getaway car the night JoAnn Peterson, his ex-wife, hid in darkness outside her son-in-law’s Spokane Valley apartment.

It was Nov. 18, 1991.

Peter Zeihen drove his Audi into his carport. Peterson stepped up to the car window toting a 12-gauge shotgun and calmly blew the man’s face off.

Zeihen, 40, never had a chance.

This killing was as calculated as any mob rub-out. Peterson and Goldberg, who also helped with the planning, are cold-blooded monsters.

It was the second attempt on Zeihen’s life. Two weeks earlier, Peterson, masked and dressed like a man, shot at Zeihen six times with a handgun – and missed.

Zeihen started wearing body armor. It wasn’t enough.

Finally ratted out by family members, Peterson was sentenced to 25 years in 2001 after pleading guilty to premeditated murder.

The Inland Northwest’s version of Ma Barker had her own ridiculous request for clemency rejected in 2004.

Now, just as ludicrous, Goldberg seeks a pardon from the 261/2-years he was given after his previous life sentence was overturned on appeal.

In December, the state Board of Clemency and Pardons will meet in Olympia to examine Goldberg’s request and vote on the outcome. Either way, Gov. Chris Gregoire will make the final call.

If he’s turned down, Goldberg could be released with good behavior in 2022.

Let’s keep it that way. He’d be in his 90s if he can last that long.

The bottom line is that this louse doesn’t deserve any breaks.

During a sentencing Goldberg told the judge he felt no remorse for the role he played in Zeihen’s murder and would do the same thing all over again.

Zeihen had been embroiled in a vicious custody battle with his estranged wife over their 2-year-old daughter.

Goldberg and Peterson contend Zeihen had molested the little girl. That’s how the pair tries to justify their assassination.

But the claim against Zeihen was thoroughly investigated at the time.

And guess what? Nobody bought it.

Not one shred of evidence ever surfaced to support the charge as anything but empty and malicious.

I can’t imagine a sane human being ever wanting to let Goldberg go free.

But weird things have been known to happen. That’s why it’s important to let the clemency board know that we’re keeping an eye on what they do.

It’s also important to support Jewel Zeihen. Now in her 80s, the Chewelah woman told me Wednesday that she thinks about her son, Peter, every single day.

And every day she asks herself the same question.

Why?

Pardon Morris “Mel” Goldberg?

Let me paraphrase what Jewel’s late husband, Frank, once said about Peterson.

Goldberg should get out of prison when Peter Zeihen gets out of his grave. ..Source.. by Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review.

WA- No one would say how inmate was killed

2-28-2009 Washington:

MONROE -- Their code of silence was as strong as the walls that kept them from freedom.

Inmates at the Washington State Reformatory saw what happened to Brian Anderson in the prison yard. They refused to talk about the 1999 brutal attack, at least not enough to help Monroe police and prison officials catch the killer.

Anderson, 31, is on the eight of diamonds in the state's first deck of cold-case playing cards. Snohomish County sheriff's detectives have handed out the cards to jail and prison inmates in hopes of turning up new leads in unsolved homicides and missing person cases.

Anderson is one of two prison inmates in the deck.

Violence landed Anderson behind bars in Monroe. He was serving a 41-year sentence for a vicious attack in 1996 in the Spokane Valley. He kidnapped a woman, raped her and tied her to a tree with wire.

Three years later someone pummeled Anderson in the prison's big yard. The blow was fatal. Anderson collapsed in front of a guard and died a short time later.

His family deserves answers, Monroe police spokeswoman Debbie Willis said.

"Somebody did something to him that shouldn't have been done," she said. "I don't know where that person is living. They could be living in our community. We can't tolerate that type of violence."

At the time, investigators believed Anderson was killed over drugs. He was dealing dope to other inmates. Authorities found marijuana hidden in the soles of his tennis shoes. Police believe another prisoner demanded drugs from Anderson. When Anderson refused, he was attacked.

At least two witnesses spoke to authorities. They were afraid to snitch. Both refused to sign a statement or testify in court. The investigation grew cold.

Now, police hope someone will have a change of heart, break their silence, and help bring a killer to justice. ..News Source.. by Diana Hefley

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monroe inmate killing still unsolved

April 3, 2000 Washington:

MONROE - A man who killed in broad daylight may go unpunished, even though authorities think they know who he is, thanks to the unspoken code of prisoners.

Brian Anderson, who was serving a 41-year sentence for rape, collapsed at the Washington State Reformatory last August and died within hours - the apparent victim of a drug robbery gone bad.

"I'm confident that I know who did it," said Vicqui Heuett, the state Department of Corrections' lead investigator on the case. She declined to elaborate.

Police and prison officials believe they have run up against an unwritten code of prison life: Don't openly snitch on another inmate.

That code has kept two inmates who claim to have witnessed the crime from signing a statement or testifying in court.

"They have to live here," Heuett said.

Eight months later, no arrests have been made.

Investigators say they have little hard evidence of who assaulted Anderson, 31, who was known to deal drugs in prison, but Heuett said the two inmate witnesses gave the following account:

About 1:30 p.m. Aug. 11, a prisoner demanded drugs from Anderson while they stood in the yard in the center of the reformatory. When Anderson refused, the inmate punched him, then ordered him to get the drugs.

Anderson instead went into the gymnasium and collapsed. He died in the hospital an hour later.

Investigators at first suspected Anderson had died of a drug overdose or that someone had slipped him a lethal dose of illegal drugs. There was no sign of trauma, he had marijuana on his person, and he'd made a comment about laced drugs shortly before he died, Monroe police Sgt. Brian Johnston said.

But informers soon suggested his death was the result of an assault. Subsequently, the Snohomish County medical examiner found Anderson died of a blow that lacerated his liver.

Heuett said investigators learned of the homicide too late to collect evidence in the yard, and video cameras didn't capture it. She thinks at least four men besides the assailant witnessed the attack - a circumstance that would have it an open-and-shut case had it occurred outside the prison.

But the investigation has ground to a halt. Monroe police, who are leading the investigation, consider the case "open but inactive." Prison officials say their investigation also remains open, but they may have to wait years before a witness decides to speak.

"It's not unheard of for somebody to finish their time and come back to say, `I want to tell you what happened out there,' " Johnston said. ..Source.. by AP

WA- Killings of 2 Bellingham sex offenders may have been by vigilante, police say

This documents one (Hank Eisses) of the two deaths that night. The story of the other sex offender murdered (Victor Vasquez) is HERE

8-30-2005 Washington:

BELLINGHAM — Last Friday night, a man claiming to be an FBI agent dropped in on three Level 3 sex offenders living together, supposedly to warn them of an Internet "hit list" targeting sex offenders.

The man was not an FBI agent, but he may have been enforcing a hit list of his own creation.

Two of the roommates were found dead early Saturday of gunshot wounds, and Bellingham police are investigating a crime that authorities say may be one of the nation's most serious cases of vigilantism aimed at sex offenders.

The killings also highlight a potential problem about Washington's 1990 law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses so the public can keep track of them.

Bellingham Police Chief Randall Carroll said it is too early to conclude that Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, were killed because they were sex offenders. Police released a sketch of the suspect, who is still at large.

Note: See what Vasquez's daughter has to say about her father's murder.

But Carroll noted that their address — and descriptions of their crimes — were posted on the city's Web site, and if someone used that information to target Eisses and Vasquez, it could have a broad impact.

"Certainly if sex offenders were targeted and attacked because of their offense, the Legislature could decide they could repeal our sex-offender notification law," Carroll said.

Eisses owned the house where the killings took place, and had rented rooms for the past three years to Vasquez and James Russell, 42.

Russell was there the night the suspect showed up, but he soon left to go to work. When he returned about 3 a.m., he told police, he found his roommates dead. Based on their estimated time of death, and the fact that Russell was at work, he is not considered a suspect, according to police. Results of an autopsy are expected later this week, Carroll said.

Vasquez was convicted in 1991 of molesting several relatives. According to court documents, his victims endured regular abuse, sexual and otherwise. He was on Department of Corrections supervision at the time of the murder.

Russell was convicted in 1994 of molesting a 3-year-old girl, and released from DOC supervision about three weeks ago after serving 5 ½ years in prison.

While the public is understandably concerned about sex crimes, Kit Bail, a DOC official, said the three men have been quiet, law-abiding offenders while living together. None of the three had violated supervision conditions, she said, and none had reoffended.

"In a sense, they are a success story," said Bail, the DOC's field supervisor for Whatcom County. "These guys were doing fine. They were employed. They were living according to the conditions."

The killings, she said, should "not be the basis on which we change the laws on registration, but if it is a vigilante act, it gives one pause. It gives me concern about other Level 3 sex offenders living responsibly — or even irresponsibly — in the community. Murder is not the response anywhere."

A fake FBI agent

Eisses was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison in 1997 for raping a 13-year-old boy at his home in Sumas, near the Canadian border. He was released from DOC supervision about two years ago, Bail said.

He bought a blue house with a white picket fence in Bellingham's Columbia neighborhood — about a half-mile from a middle school — with the help of Theodore Kingma. In a brief interview, Kingma said he met Eisses at church. "He confessed his sins, and he lived right with God and the neighbors," said Kingma. "That's all I know."

It is unclear how Eisses met Russell and Vasquez. One of Russell's relatives said Russell's sex-offender status made it difficult to find a place to live until he moved in with Eisses.

According to police, Russell said a man wearing a blue jumpsuit and a hat with an FBI logo dropped by at about 9 p.m. on Friday to warn the trio of the alleged "hit list."

There were no FBI agents in the neighborhood that day, prompting the bureau to open an investigation of impersonation, said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs. The case does not qualify for federal hate-crime prosecution because the law does not appear to cover sex offenders, she said.

Too much information?

In response to a series of vicious sex crimes against children, Washington became the first state to require sex offenders to register their address upon release from prison. Level 3 offenders like Eisses, Vasquez and Russell, considered the most likely to commit a new crime, must register for life.

Since then, most states and the federal government have passed similar mandatory-notification laws.

A searchable, statewide database maintained by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs provides block-specific addresses for Level 2 and 3 offenders. Other municipalities — including Bellingham — go further by giving exact addresses.

That information has led some to take the law into their own hands. In 1993, Joseph Gallardo planned to move into his family's home in Lynnwood after serving about three years for the statutory rape of a 10-year-old girl.

The home was burned after neighbors heard of Gallardo's plan. He then planned to move to New Mexico but encountered fierce protests there. He returned to Lynnwood, where he still lives. He has not been convicted of another crime.

John La Fond, a lawyer who fought the notification law on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, said posting sex offenders' addresses "almost becomes a confession by the state that they cannot keep the society safe from harm, and invites society to take matters into its own hands."

In researching a 2005 book on notification laws, he found dozens of assaults and harassment against sex offenders. Eisses and Vasquez, he said, may be the first deaths.

Don Pierce, head of the police-chiefs association, said the case will renew the debate on publishing sex offenders' addresses.

"I think there are risks and this may prove to be an example of one of those risks," said Pierce. "I also think the public and Legislature have said there's a risk to the general public if they don't know with specificity where a sex offender lives." ..more.. by Mike Carter and staff researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Police Say Idaho Case Inspired Sex Offenders' Killer

9-7-2005 National

SEATTLE -- The man who confessed to slaying two registered sex offenders in Bellingham told police that he was outraged by the recent case of Joseph Edward Duncan III, a convicted sexual predator being held in Idaho.

Michael Anthony Mullen, 36, made a brief court appearance Tuesday in Whatcom County Superior Court, about 80 miles north of here, after turning himself in to Bellingham police Monday afternoon.

A longtime resident of Whatcom County with a history of petty crimes, Mullen faces charges in the Aug. 26 shooting deaths of Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68. Both victims were Level III sex offenders, considered the most likely to commit similar crimes again. Mullen's arrest all but ended fears that a vigilante was on the loose targeting other registered sex offenders in the Bellingham area.

"It's a relief that he's not running around anymore with who-knows-what on his mind, probably more of the same," said Bellingham Mayor Mark Asmundson, who was informed of Mullen's arrest just minutes after it happened.

According to police, Mullen called 911 from a Bellingham restaurant and confessed to the murders. He was arrested and questioned for "hours and hours," said Bellingham police Lt. Craige Ambrose.

Investigators said Mullen provided details of the crime that only the killer would know, such as the caliber of the weapon and the way in which each victim was shot: once in the head. Ambrose said that during the interview Mullen repeatedly "came back around to the Idaho incident," referring to the Duncan case.

"Let's just say he was influenced by what happened there," Ambrose said. Duncan, a 42-year-old convicted sex predator from Tacoma, Wash., is in Kootenai County, Idaho, awaiting trial for the murders of four people and the kidnapping of two children in May near Coeur D'Alene. Duncan is being investigated in the deaths of other children across four states.

Less than two weeks after Duncan's case made national headlines, police said Mullen got on a Whatcom County Website that listed the names and addresses of all Level III sex offenders in the county.

Eisses and Vasquez lived with a third sex offender in a little green house on Northwest Avenue. According to earlier reports, the suspect had entered the victims' home, just north of downtown Bellingham, impersonating an FBI agent. The suspect told the men there was a "hit list" targeting sex offenders and that he was there to warn them.

The third man left for work with the suspect still in the house. When he returned home from work, the man found his housemates dead. Eisses had been convicted of child rape, Vaquez, of child rape and molestation. Both men had committed their crimes in Whatcom County.

On Aug. 31, five days after the murders, the Bellingham Herald received a letter from someone claiming responsibility for the killings and threatening to kill all other Whatcom County sex offenders designated as Level III. The county has 31 registered Level III offenders, including four in Bellingham, which has a population of 71,000.

Police said Mullen has confessed to sending the letter, and told investigators that more letters would soon be arriving at other media outlets. Ambrose said he did not know the content of those letters.

Ambrose said Mullen, a big man standing at 6-foot-5-inches and weighing nearly 250 pounds, had no known history of violence but had an extensive history of theft and other property crimes. Mullen had no permanent address, police said.

The slayings stirred debate over the 1990 state law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses. Washington was the first state to pass such a law, which is intended to help the public keep track of dangerous sexual predators. Congress mandated that states create registers of sex offenders. Now all 50 states have their own version of Washington's Community Protection Act.

Supporters say the public has a right to know about such offenders, but opponents argue that publicizing exact addresses invites vigilantism and prevents sexual offenders from leading normal lives. ..more.. by AP

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sketchy details released on inmate death

9-15-2007 Washington

Michael Mullen, a Stafford Creek Corrections Center inmate who died in April, was determined to have died of pneumonia, but the manner of death is undetermined because “acute mild drug toxicity” is a contributing factor, according to Grays Harbor County Coroner Ed Fleming. Initially, the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Department indicated they believed Mullen had committed suicide.

Mullen, from Bellingham, had an extensive law enforcement history, mostly involving minor crimes. But he was at Stafford Creek for the high-profile murder of two Level Three sex offenders, whom he found on a local sex offender registry Web site. He killed the two men after showing up at their home posing as an FBI agent, a ruse he said he used to confirm that the men were indeed sex offenders and to determine if they were sincerely repentant.

Fleming said Mullen had ingested prescription drugs, but the coroner would not say which drugs. “It’s a medical privacy issue,” he said. And he would not say whether the doses were therapeutic or not.

“There was enough medication, but not enough to cause the death directly,” Fleming said.

Instead, Fleming said, the immediate cause of death was lobar pneumonia, an illness in which an infection of the lungs causes them to fill with fluid, interfering with the body’s ability to absorb oxygen.

An official at the State Patrol, which handles the toxicology tests, said they were unable to discuss test results.

The Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office preliminarily believed Mullen, 37, had taken his own life, basing that on a lack of blunt force trauma and because of writings recovered from the dead man’s cell. Mullen was in the intensive management unit, where he did not have contact with other inmates.

Chad Lewis, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said the department was still putting the pieces together to figure out what led to Mullen’s death. An investigation is still under way, and the corrections department does not comment on open investigations, Lewis said.

Mullen died on the night of April 15, two hours after being found unresponsive in his cell. The prison’s Health Care Unit gave him first aid until emergency crews arrived. ..more.. by Callie White - Daily World Writer

WA- Spokane standoff ends with suspect dead

12-5-2008 Washington:

SPOKANE, Wash. -- A SWAT team entered the apartment of a suspect to serve a warrant after a six-hour standoff late Thursday night only to find the suspect dead inside.

Investigators don't know how the suspect died yet.

Officers tried to arrest 48-year-old William Leverette around 5 p.m. Thursday, but he refused to come out of his apartment near Trent and Waterworks in East Spokane. After tossing tear gas into the apartment with no effect, police called in the SWAT team.

Police were in contact with Leverette throughout the night, and several times he told officers he was ready to surrender. However, more tear gas was deployed into the apartment after 11 p.m. and Leverette stayed inside. That's when the SWAT team entered and found Leverette dead.

Leverette was wanted on a Dept. of Corrections warrant. Investigators told KREM 2 News he had a history of drug convictions and was also a sex offender. ..News Source.. by King5.com

WA- Killings of 2 Bellingham sex offenders may have been by vigilante, police say

This documents one (Victor Vasquez) of the two deaths that night.

8-30-2005 Washington:

BELLINGHAM — Last Friday night, a man claiming to be an FBI agent dropped in on three Level 3 sex offenders living together, supposedly to warn them of an Internet "hit list" targeting sex offenders.

The man was not an FBI agent, but he may have been enforcing a hit list of his own creation.

Two of the roommates were found dead early Saturday of gunshot wounds, and Bellingham police are investigating a crime that authorities say may be one of the nation's most serious cases of vigilantism aimed at sex offenders.

The killings also highlight a potential problem about Washington's 1990 law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses so the public can keep track of them.

Bellingham Police Chief Randall Carroll said it is too early to conclude that Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, were killed because they were sex offenders. Police released a sketch of the suspect, who is still at large.

Note: See what Vasquez's daughter has to say about her father's murder.

But Carroll noted that their address — and descriptions of their crimes — were posted on the city's Web site, and if someone used that information to target Eisses and Vasquez, it could have a broad impact.

"Certainly if sex offenders were targeted and attacked because of their offense, the Legislature could decide they could repeal our sex-offender notification law," Carroll said.

Eisses owned the house where the killings took place, and had rented rooms for the past three years to Vasquez and James Russell, 42.

Russell was there the night the suspect showed up, but he soon left to go to work. When he returned about 3 a.m., he told police, he found his roommates dead. Based on their estimated time of death, and the fact that Russell was at work, he is not considered a suspect, according to police. Results of an autopsy are expected later this week, Carroll said.

Vasquez was convicted in 1991 of molesting several relatives. According to court documents, his victims endured regular abuse, sexual and otherwise. He was on Department of Corrections supervision at the time of the murder.

Russell was convicted in 1994 of molesting a 3-year-old girl, and released from DOC supervision about three weeks ago after serving 5 ½ years in prison.

While the public is understandably concerned about sex crimes, Kit Bail, a DOC official, said the three men have been quiet, law-abiding offenders while living together. None of the three had violated supervision conditions, she said, and none had reoffended.

"In a sense, they are a success story," said Bail, the DOC's field supervisor for Whatcom County. "These guys were doing fine. They were employed. They were living according to the conditions."

The killings, she said, should "not be the basis on which we change the laws on registration, but if it is a vigilante act, it gives one pause. It gives me concern about other Level 3 sex offenders living responsibly — or even irresponsibly — in the community. Murder is not the response anywhere."

A fake FBI agent

Eisses was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison in 1997 for raping a 13-year-old boy at his home in Sumas, near the Canadian border. He was released from DOC supervision about two years ago, Bail said.

He bought a blue house with a white picket fence in Bellingham's Columbia neighborhood — about a half-mile from a middle school — with the help of Theodore Kingma. In a brief interview, Kingma said he met Eisses at church. "He confessed his sins, and he lived right with God and the neighbors," said Kingma. "That's all I know."

It is unclear how Eisses met Russell and Vasquez. One of Russell's relatives said Russell's sex-offender status made it difficult to find a place to live until he moved in with Eisses.

According to police, Russell said a man wearing a blue jumpsuit and a hat with an FBI logo dropped by at about 9 p.m. on Friday to warn the trio of the alleged "hit list."

There were no FBI agents in the neighborhood that day, prompting the bureau to open an investigation of impersonation, said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs. The case does not qualify for federal hate-crime prosecution because the law does not appear to cover sex offenders, she said.

Too much information?

In response to a series of vicious sex crimes against children, Washington became the first state to require sex offenders to register their address upon release from prison. Level 3 offenders like Eisses, Vasquez and Russell, considered the most likely to commit a new crime, must register for life.

Since then, most states and the federal government have passed similar mandatory-notification laws.

A searchable, statewide database maintained by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs provides block-specific addresses for Level 2 and 3 offenders. Other municipalities — including Bellingham — go further by giving exact addresses.

That information has led some to take the law into their own hands. In 1993, Joseph Gallardo planned to move into his family's home in Lynnwood after serving about three years for the statutory rape of a 10-year-old girl.

The home was burned after neighbors heard of Gallardo's plan. He then planned to move to New Mexico but encountered fierce protests there. He returned to Lynnwood, where he still lives. He has not been convicted of another crime.

John La Fond, a lawyer who fought the notification law on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, said posting sex offenders' addresses "almost becomes a confession by the state that they cannot keep the society safe from harm, and invites society to take matters into its own hands."

In researching a 2005 book on notification laws, he found dozens of assaults and harassment against sex offenders. Eisses and Vasquez, he said, may be the first deaths.

Don Pierce, head of the police-chiefs association, said the case will renew the debate on publishing sex offenders' addresses.

"I think there are risks and this may prove to be an example of one of those risks," said Pierce. "I also think the public and Legislature have said there's a risk to the general public if they don't know with specificity where a sex offender lives." ..more.. by Mike Carter and staff researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Police Say Idaho Case Inspired Sex Offenders' Killer

9-7-2005 National

SEATTLE -- The man who confessed to slaying two registered sex offenders in Bellingham told police that he was outraged by the recent case of Joseph Edward Duncan III, a convicted sexual predator being held in Idaho.

Michael Anthony Mullen, 36, made a brief court appearance Tuesday in Whatcom County Superior Court, about 80 miles north of here, after turning himself in to Bellingham police Monday afternoon.

A longtime resident of Whatcom County with a history of petty crimes, Mullen faces charges in the Aug. 26 shooting deaths of Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68. Both victims were Level III sex offenders, considered the most likely to commit similar crimes again. Mullen's arrest all but ended fears that a vigilante was on the loose targeting other registered sex offenders in the Bellingham area.

"It's a relief that he's not running around anymore with who-knows-what on his mind, probably more of the same," said Bellingham Mayor Mark Asmundson, who was informed of Mullen's arrest just minutes after it happened.

According to police, Mullen called 911 from a Bellingham restaurant and confessed to the murders. He was arrested and questioned for "hours and hours," said Bellingham police Lt. Craige Ambrose.

Investigators said Mullen provided details of the crime that only the killer would know, such as the caliber of the weapon and the way in which each victim was shot: once in the head. Ambrose said that during the interview Mullen repeatedly "came back around to the Idaho incident," referring to the Duncan case.

"Let's just say he was influenced by what happened there," Ambrose said. Duncan, a 42-year-old convicted sex predator from Tacoma, Wash., is in Kootenai County, Idaho, awaiting trial for the murders of four people and the kidnapping of two children in May near Coeur D'Alene. Duncan is being investigated in the deaths of other children across four states.

Less than two weeks after Duncan's case made national headlines, police said Mullen got on a Whatcom County Website that listed the names and addresses of all Level III sex offenders in the county.

Eisses and Vasquez lived with a third sex offender in a little green house on Northwest Avenue. According to earlier reports, the suspect had entered the victims' home, just north of downtown Bellingham, impersonating an FBI agent. The suspect told the men there was a "hit list" targeting sex offenders and that he was there to warn them.

The third man left for work with the suspect still in the house. When he returned home from work, the man found his housemates dead. Eisses had been convicted of child rape, Vaquez, of child rape and molestation. Both men had committed their crimes in Whatcom County.

On Aug. 31, five days after the murders, the Bellingham Herald received a letter from someone claiming responsibility for the killings and threatening to kill all other Whatcom County sex offenders designated as Level III. The county has 31 registered Level III offenders, including four in Bellingham, which has a population of 71,000.

Police said Mullen has confessed to sending the letter, and told investigators that more letters would soon be arriving at other media outlets. Ambrose said he did not know the content of those letters.

Ambrose said Mullen, a big man standing at 6-foot-5-inches and weighing nearly 250 pounds, had no known history of violence but had an extensive history of theft and other property crimes. Mullen had no permanent address, police said.

The slayings stirred debate over the 1990 state law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses. Washington was the first state to pass such a law, which is intended to help the public keep track of dangerous sexual predators. Congress mandated that states create registers of sex offenders. Now all 50 states have their own version of Washington's Community Protection Act.

Supporters say the public has a right to know about such offenders, but opponents argue that publicizing exact addresses invites vigilantism and prevents sexual offenders from leading normal lives. ..more.. by AP

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sketchy details released on inmate death

9-15-2007 Washington

Michael Mullen, a Stafford Creek Corrections Center inmate who died in April, was determined to have died of pneumonia, but the manner of death is undetermined because “acute mild drug toxicity” is a contributing factor, according to Grays Harbor County Coroner Ed Fleming. Initially, the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Department indicated they believed Mullen had committed suicide.

Mullen, from Bellingham, had an extensive law enforcement history, mostly involving minor crimes. But he was at Stafford Creek for the high-profile murder of two Level Three sex offenders, whom he found on a local sex offender registry Web site. He killed the two men after showing up at their home posing as an FBI agent, a ruse he said he used to confirm that the men were indeed sex offenders and to determine if they were sincerely repentant.

Fleming said Mullen had ingested prescription drugs, but the coroner would not say which drugs. “It’s a medical privacy issue,” he said. And he would not say whether the doses were therapeutic or not.

“There was enough medication, but not enough to cause the death directly,” Fleming said.

Instead, Fleming said, the immediate cause of death was lobar pneumonia, an illness in which an infection of the lungs causes them to fill with fluid, interfering with the body’s ability to absorb oxygen.

An official at the State Patrol, which handles the toxicology tests, said they were unable to discuss test results.

The Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office preliminarily believed Mullen, 37, had taken his own life, basing that on a lack of blunt force trauma and because of writings recovered from the dead man’s cell. Mullen was in the intensive management unit, where he did not have contact with other inmates.

Chad Lewis, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said the department was still putting the pieces together to figure out what led to Mullen’s death. An investigation is still under way, and the corrections department does not comment on open investigations, Lewis said.

Mullen died on the night of April 15, two hours after being found unresponsive in his cell. The prison’s Health Care Unit gave him first aid until emergency crews arrived. ..more.. by Callie White - Daily World Writer