by Ann Rule
"I need to talk to my attorney," Berry said, "to see how we should proceed--and I promise I'll find a better place to talk."
Back in his car, Berry called Karen and Sig Korsgaard. Did either of them remember finding a bloodied shirt twelve years before?
They did. Bing had told them he was in a fight and the blood came from that. They had believed him. He had also given Karen a pair of jeans to wash.
The next day, Jerry Berry visited Bing again. His informant was becoming more voluble and at ease with every interview.
Bing Spencer said that he had been sitting in the Reynolds' kitchen with Jonathan and Adam at about 8:30 in the evening of December 15 when first Ronda and then Ron had come in. Ron had opened a beer and offered one to Bing. Ron was dressed in a shirt, slacks, and sport coat, and shortly thereafter he left the house.
"Jack Walters* was there, too," Spencer said. "About a month before that, Jonathan had asked me to kill Ronda, and he offered me some ideas of how to do it. Later on this night as we were partying, Adam and Jonathan started talking about how they could kill Ronda.
"Jonathan said he wanted Ronda dead and he had for a long time. I could tell by the look in Adam's eyes that something bad was going to happen. First, they talked about making it look like a burglary that went bad.
"Later, they told us to leave the house for a while. I left and I think Jack Walters did, too, but Adam stayed there."
Bing said he'd gone to the trailer he shared with Adam, which wasn't far away. At about 2:30 to 3 A.M., Adam came home.
"He had blood on the right side of his face, and his shirt and jeans were very bloody. He told me, 'It's done.' We left the trailer around three A.M. and drove someplace on Michigan Hill. Adam pointed a snub-nosed automatic pistol at my head and he said, 'I'll kill you if you ever tell anyone what happened.' "
It sounded credible, but Berry knew he had to find some physical evidence all these years later to convince a prosecutor to file murder charges, and then persuade a jury that Ronda had died as Bing Spencer described.
He notified Barb Thompson of what he'd just heard, and asked her to call a forensic lab in Oregon to see if DNA from bodily fluids, including blood, might be analyzed successfully a dozen years after they were shed.
Barb learned it might be possible. But first they had to find the long-missing bloodied clothing. Karen Korsgaard remembered washing those clothes in 1998, and, even if they were found, they might not retain anything to test.
On February 26, Berry met with Sheriff Steve Mansfield and Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown at the Law and Justice Center in Chehalis. He gave them a copy of his ongoing investigation regarding the party alleged to have taken place on December 15-16. He also gave them a verbal summary of what he had learned. Now he asked Sheriff Mansfield what would be the best way to proceed. Steve Mansfield said he would read the report and get back to Jerry Berry in the next few days.
Jerry Berry was no longer a commissioned officer, but once he had given his report to the Lewis County detectives, he was essentially wearing that hat. Regretfully, he told Barb Thompson he could not share what he learned from this point on. It had to be kept secret--even from her. At least for the moment.
Bing Spencer was feeling cocky. He wanted special privileges. If he could only have his computer back and get out of jail, he was sure he could sit down and write out the whole story for Berry.
His parents, the Korsgaards, believed that Bing probably attended the party at the Reynolds house, but they couldn't accept that he might have actually done anything to harm Ronda. However, his mother said, "If you do the crime, you do the time."
Jerry Berry was having no luck finding the bloody clothes or the spiral notebook where Spencer said he had written down things he recalled about the night Ronda died. Now he sensed that the Korsgaards were becoming afraid that Bing might be in a lot of trouble--might even be charged in some way as an accessory to Ronda's murder.
He was correct. Karen and Sig wanted a signed document that would prevent that from happening. That was beyond Jerry Berry's power.
Nevertheless, Bing Spencer--still in jail for other drug-related crimes--continued to talk to Berry. He said he had walked to his travel trailer and retrieved some "dope," either marijuana or meth, and when he returned, there was no one outside, and no sign of Jonathan and Adam, who had been arguing.
"I believed they were fighting about how to kill Ronda. I walked into the house and started down the hallway just as Micah was coming out of their little brother's bedroom at the end of the hall. We looked at each other and we heard a gunshot go off--the sound coming from Ronda's room.
"I heard Jonathan say, 'Oh fuck!' and then Adam said, 'Help me!' A girl in the kitchen screamed and then ran outside. I turned around and ran back to my trailer and just sat on the couch not knowing what to do."
Again, he described Adam Skolnik coming in all bloody and with something that was possibly brain tissue on his clothes, too.
"It looked like the blood on his face had been 'sprayed or splattered.' "
This was apt description of high-velocity back spatter or "blowback" from a gunshot wound.
Anyone, including myself, would find this new story of a party without any parental supervision quite believable. Jerry Berry wanted very much to know for sure that he and Barb Thompson had tracked down the real killers at last.
Spencer kept summoning Jerry Berry back to the Lewis County Jail with "more information," most of it damning to his former best friend, Adam Skolnik.
"I was on my way home," Berry said, "when Bing told his stepfather that he'd forgotten to tell me something. So I turned around and went back to the jail.
"Bing told me that Adam and he had gone to Denny's restaurant on the morning Ronda died--and this was after Adam had held a gun to Bing's head and threatened to kill him if he ever told what happened," Berry recalled. "He said that Adam had leaned across the table and asked him, 'Do you want to know what it felt like?' "
Bing had asked his best friend, "What did what feel like?"
"What it felt like when I done her?"
"No, Adam," Bing had said. "What did it feel like?"
"You know what it feels like when you have a buck in your sights? It felt like that--only after I pulled the trigger."
BING SPENCER BELIEVED he was the fair-haired boy with detectives. He was looking forward to his "contract" to become a drug snitch, and he was also getting serious attention from Jerry Berry and the other detectives.
But he slipped up. And then the narration of Bing Spencer began to disintegrate, like safety glass hit by a bullet.
On March 5, 2010, Jerry Berry introduced Bing Spencer to Lewis County detectives Jamey McGinty and Kevin Engelbertson. Berry stayed in the interview room only about five minutes, asking Spencer to be truthful and tell the detectives everything he had told Berry.
"I told Bing that I trusted the detectives one hundred percent and I was asking him to do the same."
Four days later, Chief Stacy Brown led Berry into a room, and Detective Kimsey pointed to a chair where there was a clear view into the interview room. Bing Spencer was sitting at a table beyond the one-way glass with Engelbertson and McGinty. Someone handed Berry a headset so he could listen to what was being said in the interview. His eyes widened as he listened.
"Bing was telling the detectives things that were different from what he had told me. He told them that he did not believe Adam Skolnik would have killed Ronda and that he now thought Ronda had shot herself," Berry said. "He also stated that I had put words in his mouth and led him to believe that he would be allowed to go home!"
Jerry Berry went into the hall with Stacy Brown after some time, and asked to talk with Sergeant Dusty Breen. He explained that Bing Spencer was clearly playing to whoever was interviewing him.
So had Spencer made the party story up out of whole cloth?
After the interview was finished, there was a meeting in the sheriff's conference room, attended by Stacy Brown, Serge
ant Breen, Detectives Kimsey, McGinty, and Engelbertson, and Berry. Kimsey felt that Bing Spencer had made up the whole thing, and McGinty and Engelbertson had found him too "wishy-washy" to be believable.
It was a serious loss for Jerry Berry, as Chief Brown and Sergeant Breen told him that the investigation would continue until more facts were known.
THERE WAS ANOTHER young man alleged to be at that curious "party": Jack Walters. None of the detectives had located him but, with Berry's help, Barb Thompson tracked him to Cascade County, Montana. He was living there, and the Cascade County Sheriff's Office was only too glad to arrest him when they learned Walters was a convicted sexual predator who had never reported his presence to their offices as required by law.
Jeff Ripley, the Montana deputy Barb talked to, said he would personally call Sergeant Dusty Breen at the Lewis County Sheriff's Office to offer assistance. After being briefed on Ronda's story by Berry, Ripley even offered to interview Walters himself if the Lewis County detectives would write out a list of questions.
He waited for a call from them.
And waited. They never contacted Cascade County.
SOME LONG-AGO EVIDENCE turned up in the spring of 2010: Sheriff Mansfield reported that they had located female DNA samples from Ronda and male DNA from Ron Reynolds. It appeared that it was his semen that had been swabbed from Ronda's vaginal vault. There apparently had been no sign of other semen present. There was no way to know how carefully the sample was preserved back in 1998.
Scrapings from Ronda's torn fingernail were located, too. There was no male DNA caught in the nail. She hadn't broken the nail fighting for her life; it was probably the result of some mishap when she packed to move or drained the waterbed--if, indeed, she ever had.
Bing Spencer had woven a hideous story. Was that the way his mind worked--or had he really seen and heard what he said he had? He knew many of the facts: the Black Velvet bottle, the arguments his mother had also observed, the times that seemed to coordinate accurately with Ronda's time of death, and the condition of her body.
Over a dozen years, there had been several articles written about the mystery of Ronda's death. It was possible that Spencer had researched the details--like the whiskey bottle--but he hardly seemed the type to go to so much trouble.
Bing Spencer had recanted the story he told Jerry Berry. In late April, after demurring at first, he agreed to take a polygraph examination. He passed it, admitting that he had no knowledge of Ronda's shooting. He stated that he had made it all up so he could trade favors and get out of jail.
Adam Skolnik also took a polygraph--and passed it, denying that he had any involvement in Ronda's murder.
It was a major let-down, but Jerry Berry and Marty Hayes continue to believe that Bing Spencer was at a party at Ronda's house the night she died. He also believes Micah Reynolds was there, because Spencer's mother substantiated both facts. Berry considers her a very credible witness.
MICAH MIGHT WELL have been in his father's house that night in December and, if he was, he may know what happened. Still, no one has ever suggested he had any participation in Ronda's death. The consensus was that there would be no effort to locate or question him.
On April 27, 2010, Jerry Berry wrote his final report.
All information and leads were brought to the Lewis County Sheriff's Office by this investigator. The original witness, Tom "Bing" Spencer, provided false information which hampered the investigation . . .
I am closing my private investigation into the death of Ronda Reynolds at this time. However, should reliable and verifiable information become available in the future, I will turn it over to the Lewis County Sheriff's Office for follow up.
Respectfully,
West Coast Investigative Services
Jerry C. Berry, Owner
Private Detective
Likely--and
Unlikely--Suspects
WE CAME TO KNOW by the summer of 2010 that Ronda Reynolds did not commit suicide in 1998. Twelve jurors had quickly agreed that the four death certificates issued by the Lewis County Coroner's Office listing the manner of her death were wrong.
That in itself was a tremendous comfort to Barb Thompson.
But Judge Richard Hicks was hampered by statute from legally declaring Ronda a murder victim. As he denied Royce Ferguson's motion on the last day of the November 2009 hearing, one got the sense that Hicks wished he could accede to Ferguson's request.
I believe that Ronda Reynolds was a homicide victim. Her family has never wavered in their conviction that someone deliberately killed her. Private investigator Jerry Berry, former Lewis County deputy Bob Bishop, gun expert Marty Hayes, and Attorney Royce Ferguson all agree that she died at a murderer's hand (or at murderers' hands). Thousands of people who have followed Ronda's case since December 1998--many of them strangers--have sent their support to her mother.
It is easier to reach a conclusion that Ronda was murdered than it is to prove who killed her. Many individuals had motivations to want her gone from this earth; there may well be some we still don't know about. There are undoubtedly those who know what happened, but for their own reasons are afraid to come forward.
In a homicide case, particularly one that occurs in the home of a victim with a spouse, the first person law enforcement officers look at as a possible suspect is that spouse or romantic partner. After that, they expand the circle of suspicion a little more, concentrating on other people who were close to the fatally injured party.
Love can turn to hate. Infidelity and jealousy often poison a marriage. Emotions erupt, burning like a forest fire out of control.
There are even occasions where the motivation is coldly a matter of business. Humans kill each other for myriad reasons.
Ron Reynolds was, of course, the first suspect, and he remains one. From the beginning, his affect was peculiar: he hardly seemed like a grieving widower, and he was anxious to suggest the suicide theory.
Perhaps the hardest part of his story to accept was his denial that he heard the fatal gunshot--when he said he was only about ten feet away.
But why would Ron want his about-to-be ex-wife to die?
I suggest that his reasons would have been financial. Every one I talked to, many of whom had known Ron from his childhood to middle age, mentioned his greediness. As a child, he didn't share his toys or his room. His parents spoiled him, adding to his sense of entitlement. As an adult, he was attracted to women of means--whether it came from their families or their own efforts.
If they were attractive, all the better.
Although Ron denied it, Ronda did give him $15,000 to help buy the house on Twin Peaks Drive, and he knew she was due to receive about $7,000 from the sale of property she owned with her former husband, Mark Liburdi.
Ron was still stung by the almost $100,000 the divorce judge had ordered him to pay Katie Huttula. With their five sons, and the twenty-some years Katie had been married to him, it wasn't an inordinate amount, but for him it was a stab to his financial worth.
Couldn't Ron Reynolds simply divorce Ronda after their eleven-month marriage? Yes, she was disappointed that her second marriage had failed, but she was quite ready to start over with her life. She was making plans, deciding where she would live, and planning advances in her store-security career. She probably would have married David Bell--although not as rapidly as she had wed Ron after her first divorce.
But Katie had cost Ron $100,000, and he must have been apprehensive of what Ronda might ask for.
Ron believed that Ronda had $300,000 worth of life insurance. He knew he was her primary heir. That is the kind of motivation that shows up in fiction--and in fact.
Katie Huttula and Ron began an affair within three or four months of his marriage to Ronda. Both of them apparently had regrets about splitting up after so many years. They seemed almost addicted to each other. Katie told a number of people that she wanted to reunite with Ron. Indeed, she had been vehement when she spoke about that with a woman w
ho had been in the same graduating class at Elma High School.
"I want Ron back," she said. "And I'll get him. I don't care what I have to do to make that happen!"
On the night Ronda died, Katie and Ron were allegedly still having their affair. Katie wanted her family all together. She adored her sons even though her drug use had continued while she was pregnant with some of them. They were extremely intelligent and multitalented--but several of them were using drugs by the time they were in their midteens.
That wasn't surprising, given the fact that both their biological parents had problems with drugs, although Ron seemed to stop as he grew older. Katie's addictions clung to her like moss, blurring her intelligence and decision making.
And Katie sent that email to Barb in June 2004 that said she knew Ronda had been murdered. She denied knowing who the killer was--and referred to more than one murderer. That puzzled Barb at the time. It still does.
How much does Katie actually know about Ronda's death?
Even if the recent revelations by Tom "Bing" Spencer about a party at Ron and Ronda's house on December 15-16 turn out to be only partially true, it's quite possible neither Ron nor Katie was in the house for most of that night.
It seems more than likely that Ron didn't go home after the school Christmas pageant--but drove north instead to Katie's house.
Their three younger sons were whisked out of the house on Twin Peaks Drive when the first deputies arrived. They were not questioned by investigators before they left. Why hadn't any of the three youths heard the gunshot? Did anyone ask them?
And when Barb arrived some thirty hours later, she was stunned to see Katie walk out of what had been Ron and Ronda's bedroom. Katie had apparently slept in their waterbed the night Ronda died!
Was it possible that Ron's story about his arriving home at about 10 P.M. and spending the next seven hours trying to talk Ronda out of committing suicide had no basis in fact?
