by Rule, Ann
But they had. It seemed that the dichotomy between the sworn police investigators and the retired detectives who agreed with them and Barb Thompson and her volunteer team was growing wider and wider. To Barb, it was almost as if it was more important to the Lewis County Sheriff's Office and the HITS team to win than to find the truth.
Had they backed themselves into such a tight corner that there was no graceful way to admit any misjudgment?
Or could Barb have been blinded by what she wanted--and needed--to believe about her lost daughter?
IN THE PAST, I had written a number of articles about actual murders that occurred--and had been solved--in Lewis County. Glade Austin was instrumental in bringing in many of those convictions, and those killers were in prison.
I knew that one day I would write Ronda's story, although I sometimes doubted that there would ever be an ending to it. As the years passed, it seemed less and less likely that anyone would ever be arrested for killing her.
Even so, I decided that her story had to be told--questions and all. It didn't seem fair that she should just be forgotten as the years passed.
I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE who worried about the unfinished story. Sergeant Austin felt compelled to write a supplemental report summing up his feelings and decisions about Ronda Reynolds's death. Austin seemed just as convinced that Ronda committed suicide as Jerry Berry was positive she had been murdered. Austin's report follows.
Glade Austin, 1/30/02
On January 10, 02, I was advised that The Chronicle was coming out with an article in the paper that day. On January 11, I contacted Mr. Ballew. He indicated he had read the article, and didn't feel too badly about how it had come out. I indicated to him that I had several releases I was preparing and would try to get them out to him that day, so he could get them to his client.
An additional article came out in The Chronicle, in regards to the superintendent of the Toledo School District supporting Ron Reynolds.
I took sick leave and some vacation time and will be going on disability for medical problems starting 3/08/02. However, I have been reviewing this case at home periodically to prepare a final report. I have addressed with Chief Criminal Deputy Joe Doench the areas of work that I feel still need to be done so he can assign an investigator to finish. Almost all the information I will discuss here is in my original reports. This will be an attempt to pull it together to some degree and explain my reasons why I believe this case to be a suicide.
On the morning of the death of Ronda Reynolds, Ron Reynolds gave a statement to Gary Holt, which throughout this investigation, although it been expanded upon, has remained consistent. He has told the same story over and over again, with the only difference being that he has been given the opportunity to provide additional detail.
He states that he was talking to his wife on the phone, that she was suicidal, and that he was trying to talk her out of it. This turns out to be an eighty-four minute phone call, which is on his cell phone record and on the house phone record. We know from talking to Cheryl Gilbert and David Bell that Ronda was despondent and depressed, so this eighty-four minute conversation seems consistent with the discussions that Mr. Reynolds states he had.
In a later interview, he states that he stopped for a burger in Toledo, and went to a Toledo school play--which seems inconsistent with his eighty-four minute call and his concern. However, in his original statement, he states he urged her to contact a friend because he was in Olympia, and indicates that she did have a friend come over . . . She told him not to come home, that she was feeling better, and that he felt that probably David Bell had arrived, which we later find out is true.
He indicates in his statement that he checked for a pulse on his wife's neck, that he could not feel one, and called 911. In the first interview I had with him, I asked him if he had checked his wife's pulse twice and he stated, "No--just once." From reviewing the 911 tape, it's clear the dispatcher asked him if he had checked the pulse. He stated, "No, should I go check?"
He indicates that he got home and when he went into the master bedroom and into the bathroom, he saw the holster to his father's .32 caliber handgun lying next to the toilet, and he questioned her about where the gun was, and she indicated that she had given it to her friend David Bell. We know from David Bell's statement that this was partially true. She did try to give him the gun, but he had unloaded it and either gave it back to her or put it in the drawer. I think this statement is of particular importance. One or more of the kids had walked by and stated that David Bell had handed Ronda the gun, but also have said that they did not tell their father of this until after the incident . . . It would seem that she took the gun from its holster and hid it somewhere in the house--most likely within the bathroom or the walk-in closet, as the holster was found--or observed by Mr. Reynolds next to the toilet in master bathroom. It is in this time frame that Mr. Reynolds sees the message on the mirror and states he told Ronda to "clean it up," which she apparently did not do.
Asked if she drank any alcohol, he indicates he saw the bottle and saw that she was having a drink, but did not know how much she had had and said there wasn't much left in the bottle. If she had, in fact, had a drink earlier in the evening, the amount that she drank could easily have been metabolized and out of her system by the time of her death at approximately five o'clock in the morning.
Asked about the phone book laying [sic] open, he said that she was going to fly over to Spokane to visit her mother, and that she was taking one of her dogs with her. This later is confirmed by Discover card records and Alaska Airlines records that she ordered a ticket to Spokane at 10:36 P.M. and she ordered a dog carrier to go with her.
In Cheryl Gilbert's first statement, she indicates that Ronda was completely devastated about the pending breakup of her marriage. She was also present on the 15th at [Ronda's] house . . . In their conversation, Ronda said she was going to take a muscle relaxer because she pulled her back that day while packing and working. In Cheryl Gilbert's second statement to Detective Berry, she said that Ronda was extremely upset, that she felt like she was in the dark, and that she was just so down. Because of her [Ronda's] mood, she might do something drastic and, without even mentioning the word "suicide," Ronda looked at her and said "No. I would never do that." So it would appear that they were both thinking the same thing.
I interviewed Cheryl Gilbert several times and she said she never considered Ron a suspect in Ronda's death--that if she hadn't killed herself, she thought Jonathan would have had something to do with it. This was based on a story that Ronda told her, and many others, about Jonathan coming into the bathroom when she was bathing or showering. . . . Later, in separate interviews, Jonathan and Mr. Reynolds denied that these incidents ever occurred and showed no indication to me that they weren't being truthful.
In my interview with Jonathan, he said he had not been in the master bedroom at all on the evening of the 15th or the morning of the 16th, prior to Ronda's death.
Even knowing that the story Ronda told may not have occurred, for Jonathan to be a suspect at all in this death would mean that he would have had to open the door to the master bedroom, go past his father who was in bed, open the door to the bathroom--possibly--and the closet, fire the shot, come back out through those doors, close them, pass his father again, and go back to his own bedroom. This does not seem reasonable, especially in the light that Mr. Reynolds passed a polygraph, and if he had any knowledge of such a scenario, he would not have passed the polygraph, nor have I found any motive for Jonathan to have committed such an act--in particular, since he knew Ronda was leaving the household.
Ronda had Cheryl Gilbert coming to pick her up the next morning to take her to the Portland airport, which later turns out to be inconsistent with what she told David Bell and the ticket that she purchased to travel out of SeaTac to Spokane. With the number of phone calls she made that night, it seems like she could have called Cheryl and advised her of any change of plans.
Ron Reynolds
indicates that his wife talked him into making love the night of the 15th and that that did occur and he did ejaculate. The autopsy report confirms that sperm were found in the slides and swabs. I inquired of David Bell about any possibility that he and Ronda had had sexual relations during the time they were together on the 15th and he emphatically stated that nothing like that occurred.
. . . David Bell was interviewed the morning of the 16th at the scene, and later by me. He discussed the incident where Ronda gave him the gun, and that he unloaded it and put it back in a drawer. He stated this incident was very odd. . . . I asked him why he had unloaded the gun, indicating it's not normal--especially for police officers--to unload other peoples' guns. He stated it was a habit of his and also because the kids were in the house, that he just automatically unloaded it.
After loading his truck up with her belongings, dropping the keys off at Cheryl Gilbert's, and shopping for gas, Ronda indicated that she wanted to go to his house and stay until she got her feet on the ground. He didn't want to do that because he had kids at home who hadn't met her. He didn't want to bring her home late at night under those conditions, and he also had a number of cats and she had a number of dogs. He offered to take her elsewhere but she elected to go home.
Austin talked with Krista Liburdi, Ronda's ex-husband Mark's new wife, who said Ronda had phoned her about the division of profits from the sale of the little ranch where Ronda and Mark once lived. Krista said Ronda always had the last word, but in the final forty-eight hours of her life, she had agreed to let Mark decide how to split the money.
Glade Austin went to the Washington State Patrol and noted all of Ronda's alleged reprimands, on-the-job injuries, and financial obligations there. Ronda had gone to an attorney--Susan Sampson--asking that any allegations against her be investigated.
Annette Sandberg--who later became chief of the Washington State Patrol--worked in internal affairs at the time, and took on the probe. But somehow the entire investigation had been purged from the Patrol's files.
(Sandberg eventually determined that the allegations against Ronda were "unfounded and unsupported.")
Sergeant Austin continued in his quest to show that Ronda Reynolds had been depressed and dishonest. Although he wasn't at all disturbed that Ron Reynolds had reaped $50,000 from her insurance--even though he paid the premium after Ronda died--Glade Austin picked away at Ronda's honesty. He noted that someone had used ten different versions of her name to obtain credit: her maiden name, Liburdi's surname, and Ron Reynolds's name, with nine different Social Security numbers. Sometimes the person applying had listed Ronda's middle initial as "E." and sometimes as "F."
In addition Ronda E. Reynolds had entered into a diversion program with ten different conditions she had to adhere to. She was to complete 120 hours of community service, and pay program fees every quarter of $550 at $150 down and $50 a month. This had been paid in full--in the amount of $1,375.
Glade Austin did not consider that several people might have tried to get credit cards in names close to Ronda's. There was Katie Huttula, who had a continuing drug problem and had forged checks within days of Ronda's death. There was Cheryl Gilbert, who had used Ronda's bank account to write checks to pay her own bills--and Ronda was letting her pay it off by cleaning her house. There was even Ron Reynolds, for whom money seemed more important than almost anything.
Now that Ronda was dead, it was easy to blame her for any financial flaws.
"Thus, it appears." Austin wrote,
there is a pattern of behavior that would indicate that on a lot of occasions, Ronda Reynolds was not a truthful person . . . It would be consistent with the statements Ron Reynolds has made in regards to the monies that Ronda Reynolds had absconded with during the marriage, without his knowledge, and in fact had apparently forged his signature on a number of credit applications, where she ran up thousands of dollars of bills, which were later dropped and taken off of Mr. Reynolds' account, when he was able to show that the signatures on the forms were not his . . .
If not, whose signatures were they?
One got the feeling that if Sergeant Glade Austin would have painted Ronda with an even darker brush if he could. He had ignored the arguments against her taking her own life, and he even took issue with the number of Barb Thompson's horses. He insisted she had only one. At the time, she had dozens.
At the time, Ronda and Freeman owned the ranch in Spokane. Barb had long since put it in their names, although she currently lived there and was the one who bred the prize quarter horses, attended the mares' labors, and raised the colts, training them and other horses brought to her. She wanted to be sure that her two children would get the ranch property, divided equally, if she should die suddenly.
Austin clearly viewed Ron Reynolds as a kindly school principal and Ronda Reynolds as an "absconder" and a liar. There were no shades of gray in his opinions.
He went on to misquote Ronda's attorney, completely changing the meaning in the statements she made after she learned Ronda was dead.
Ms. Sampson had indicated something to the effect that she was surprised Ronda Reynolds hadn't committed suicide before she actually did.
Asked to comment on this, Susan Sampson was appalled. "What I said in terms of 'surprise,' " she said, "was that I'd heard a former female trooper named Ronda had died. When I checked, it was Ronda Reynolds, and I wasn't surprised that it was the woman I represented--because how many Rondas could there be in the Washington State Patrol? It had nothing at all to do at all with my thinking I expected her to commit suicide. Because I never did."
THE SPRING OF 2002 was a low point for Barb Thompson. She felt like a pawn on a giant chessboard, a pawn that was losing ground. Ronda had been dead for more than three years and they were further from finding out what had happened than they had ever been.
Barb had loyal supporters; Sharyn Decker, who wrote a very long article exploring the case for The Chronicle, believed that Ronda had not killed herself. All of Ronda's closest friends continued to refuse to accept the possibility that she had taken her own life. Jerry Berry wasn't about to give up, but Barb was afraid that people would forget. She knew that they had their own lives and their own problems.
She also knew she needed an attorney and some forensic investigators who could check out aspects of the case and evidence. But she couldn't afford anything like that. Jerry Berry had never charged her a penny; he was as consumed with finding the truth as she was. So Barb developed a knack for connecting with the media. It was her only way of keeping the story alive.
After the publication of Decker's reprise of the case in The Chronicle, Barb got a call out of the blue from a man who gave his name as Marty Hayes. Hayes told her he was running for coroner of Lewis County in the fall or 2002. Coroner Terry Wilson had held the post for decades and voters couldn't seem to visualize anyone else. There had been rumors about Wilson's disregard for the dignity of the dead--but they weren't widespread.
Barb had attempted to speak with Wilson many times, but he always refused. The only person on the coroner's staff she had ever spoken to was Wilson's deputy, Carmen Brunton.
Now his opponent, Marty Hayes, was asking her if he might obtain a copy of the investigation into her daughter's death.
"I was short with him--suspicious. I guess I didn't trust anyone after all this time with no results. Well, anyone but Jerry," Barb said. "I told him it would cost about one hundred and fifty dollars to copy the file and buy postage to send it to him. If he wanted to send me a check for that, I would get a copy of what I'd been able to compile for him. I thought if he was elected coroner, he should know about Ronda's case. But how could I have been so snippy? I didn't realize how much Marty was willing to do to help me."
Jerry Berry convinced Barb that bringing Hayes into the probe could be a positive thing.
Marty Hayes was in his mid-forties, a burly, smiling giant of a man. He had a long history of interest in law enforcement since he was twenty-two. He'd worked as a com
missioned officer, a reserve officer, and even a guard at a nuclear plant, in Idaho and Washington state. He seldom stayed with any particular agency for more than two or three years. Although he'd taken many hours of advanced classes in criminal justice and forensics and was an expert in firearms and ballistics, he was working toward a law degree at the Concord Law School in Los Angeles, an online university and the first in the country to offer a juris doctor program. (He has since earned his law degree and is preparing to take the bar exam.)
When he moved to Lewis County in 1995, Marty Hayes opened his own gun training school, the Firearms Academy of Seattle, where about 10 percent of his students are law enforcement officers. Hayes estimates he's trained five thousand cops and private citizens over the fifteen years since its inception. He teaches handgun safety, fundamentals of home defense, and tactical handguns. There isn't much he doesn't know about guns.
"I read about Ronda Reynolds's death, and I got to wondering about how it was being handled," Hayes recalled. "Maybe I could make a difference. I didn't mind sending Barb the check."
And Barb did send Marty Hayes the reports and the information that she had gathered on her own.
"He offered to do tests for me--ballistics, other things we needed, like how the recoil would have worked, the sound, loudness of a handgun, and if a pillow really could muffle that sound. And he would work pro bono. That meant I would have two experts working on Ronda's case, for free! I felt as though my luck was changing again. And that we had a chance."
