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Wednesday, April 20, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Brothers charged with killing Independent Party gets clarity
missing Washington couple
on presidential nominations
SEATTLE (AP) — Two
brothers wanted in the
disappearance and presumed
slayings of a Washington state
couple may be heading for the
Me[ican border, authorities
said Tuesday as they charged
the pair with ¿rst-degree
murder.
Detectives found a car in
Phoeni[ that had been driven
by John Blaine Reed and his
brother, Tony Clyde Reed, and
they said two friends of the
brothers gave them a different
car — a gold Acura sedan —
and $500, knowing they were
on the run from police.
A license plate reader
captured the Acura’s plate
near Cale[ico, California, on
Monday, authorities said.
The brothers are wanted
in the disappearance of John
Reed’s former neighbors,
Patrick Shunn, 45, and his
wife, Monique Patenaude, 46,
who were reported missing a
week ago. Investigators say
they found evidence the couple
were killed, and teams were
searching for their bodies in a
wooded 23-square-mile area
around their home near Oso,
50 miles northeast of Seattle.
“The e[act location of the
Reed brothers is unknown,
but there is reason to believe
they may be trying to Àee
to Me[ico,” the Snohomish
County Sheriff’s Of¿ce in
Washington said in an email
Tuesday.
Authorities
described
them as convicted felons who
should be considered armed
and dangerous, as several guns
seemed to be missing from
John Reed’s former home.
Charging documents ¿led
Tuesday said authorities found
blood in the home’s bathtub, as
well as in John Reed’s pickup,
the victims’ vehicles, and
on gasoline-soaked clothing
By KRISTENA HANSEN
Associated Press
Snohomish County Sheriff Office via AP
These undated booking photos show Tony Reed, left
and John Reed.
found in bags underneath a
mattress outside the home.
The state crime laboratory
is analyzing the blood for
DNA evidence.
The victims’ vehicles had
been driven or pushed down
a steep, forested embankment,
and at 3:30 a.m. on April 12,
a neighbor’s surveillance
camera caught the vehicles
being simultaneously driven
up the remote road on the
way to where they were later
discovered, a prosecutor
wrote. The camera also
recorded John Reed’s pickup
traveling up the same road the
ne[t day, he said.
Authorities found the
pickup at the home of the
brothers’ parents, in the
central Washington city of
Ellensburg. Clyde Reed, their
father, told investigators he
had just cleaned the truck and
added “that he did not know
where his two sons were, but
if he did, he would not tell law
enforcement,” the charging
papers said.
When the brothers left
Ellensburg last Thursday, they
were driving the parents’ red
Volkswagen — the same car
authorities found in Phoeni[,
detectives said.
Shunn and Patenaude had
long worried about getting on
the wrong side of John Reed,
who lived a little ways up an
old logging road from their
21-acre spread in the foothills
of the Cascade Mountains.
When they sued other neigh-
bors over a property dispute
more than two years ago,
they avoided naming him as a
defendant because they didn’t
want to irk him, their former
lawyer, Thomas Adams, said
Monday.
Court documents say John
Reed had threatened to shoot
the couple for cutting brush
between their two properties
in 2013.
John Reed has been cited
for a number of mostly
minor offenses, but also
was convicted of felonies
for growing marijuana and
eluding law enforcement.
Tony Reed, 49, has
amassed dozens of arrests and
twice was under state supervi-
sion — from 1989 to 1991 on
drug charges, and from 1994 to
2003 for three misdemeanors,
including an assault charge.
Authorities believe they
are now driving a 2002 gold
Acura 3.2TL with Arizona
plate BNN-9968.
SHERIFF: Department staff has increased
85 percent since Rowan took of¿ce
Continued from 1A
English calls in there is always
translation available.
Rowan said in the more
than three years since he took
oI¿ce, the department has
seen an 85 percent increase
in staff, has made operational
changes to how calls to 9-1-1
are handled and has gone
from a jail capacity of 135
beds to having an average of
190 full.
However, he also acknowl-
edged there was still work to
be done, especially in regards
to decreasing response times.
Throughout the evening he
encouraged county residents
to call him directly if they had
complaints about the sheriff’s
department.
“If we’re not providing the
service we need to be, then I
want to know about it,” he
said. “If I don’t know about it
I can’t ¿[ it.”
He heard some of those
complaints on Monday. One
county resident in attendance
said he called to report a theft
at his residence and no deputy
ever made contact with him.
Another said she
and her teenage son
went to confront
a prowler on their
own, even though
they were unarmed,
because they knew
from
e[perience
it was likely to
be hours before a
deputy showed up. Rowan
Some said it was
hard not to feel that a slow
response time might be due to
race, but Rowan said that calls
for service “have no color.”
He said the message from
county commissioners has
been “no new positions” for
the coming ¿scal year, but he
has put in a request for four
anyway.
Hispanic
Advisory
Committee chair Eddie de la
Cruz told Rowan that if people
were needed to testify to the
county commission about the
urgency for more deputies to
respond for calls of service,
there were people present
on Monday who could talk
¿rsthand about times they had
called and not e[perienced a
timely response.
“If there is
anything we can
do to support that,
we’re more than
willing,” he said.
De la Cruz
also responded to
Rowan’s question
about how to recruit
more
bilingual
employees
by
inviting Rowan to
speak on his Saturday after-
noon radio show on La Ley.
Rowan is being chal-
lenged for his position by
Ryan Lehnert, who spoke
to the Hispanic Advisory
Committee during their
March meeting.
During that meeting
Lehnert said if elected he
wanted to form an advisory
committee to the sheriff’s
of¿ce that would function
similarly to the Hispanic
Advisory Committee. He
also said he wanted to make
hiring more bilingual deputies
a priority.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastoregonian.
com or 541-564-4536.
PORTLAND — Gearing
up for its ¿rst state-run
primary
election
ne[t
month, the Independent
Party of Oregon got some
clarity this week about how
it’ll be allowed to pick a
presidential nominee.
Registered
members
of the IPO, which became
Oregon’s third major party
last year, will pick their pres-
idential candidate of choice
through a write-in on their
ballots, but whoever claims
the most votes in the state’s
May 17 primary won’t
necessarily get the party’s
nominee. Instead, party
leaders can have the ¿nal
say, under certain parame-
ters, the Oregon Department
of Justice said Monday.
It won’t affect the
Republican or Democratic
contests, which are restricted
to voters registered in those
perspective parties. But
it’s the ¿rst time in recent
memory that Oregon’s
primary contest will have
three major parties, and the
IPO wanted more control
over who it nominates, even
when it doesn’t have its own
presidential candidate, as is
the case this year.
“It’s not aimed at being
stuck with an unappetizing
choice — it was aimed at
the forces of the state to not
interfere with the Indepen-
dent Party in a manner that
was totally discriminatory,”
said Linda Williams, IPO
chair.
While state law says the
person with the most votes
gets nominated or wins,
the DOJ said there’s an
e[ception for presidential
nominations, which follows
a separate process. Thus,
Independent Party leaders
don’t have to nominate the
presidential candidate with
the most write-ins, the DOJ
told the party in a memo-
randum.
The Oregon Secretary of
State’s of¿ce had e[pressed
concerns about giving “veto
power” to IPO leaders last
month, suggesting it might
be inconsistent with state
election laws and asked the
DOJ to weigh in.
“Now that the law is
clear, the IPO is free to
operate within the law,”
Laura Terrill, chief of staff
to Secretary Jeanne Atkins,
told The Associated Press.
“Because of the potential for
voter confusion, however,
the Secretary has encouraged
the IPO to make its process
clear on their website or
other places where the
public can be informed.”
IPO leaders can’t pick
just anyone — if Donald
Trump, for instance, won the
national GOP nomination,
the IPO couldn’t nominate
Sen. Ted Cruz, the DOJ
stated. And the party also
needs
the
candidate’s
permission to be of¿cially
nominated.
Williams said Monday’s
memo was a victory for the
IPO, saying it affords them
the same rights as Repub-
licans and Democrats who
use delegates and superdel-
egates — not voters — to
ultimately select presidential
nominees.
“The pushback from us
was, frankly, that that was
unconstitutional and illegal,”
said Williams, referring to
Atkins’ previous position on
the issue. “The state cannot
step in and order a political
party to put somebody as
their nominee.”
BRIEFLY
Two Bundys seeking release
from jail in Nevada case
Woman’s body had been in
Oregon home for 5 months
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A son of rancher
Cliven Bundy wants more time to prepare to
seek release from federal custody pending
trial in an armed confrontation with govern-
ment agents in Nevada two years ago.
Ammon Bundy argues in documents ¿led
ahead of a Wednesday detention hearing
in Las Vegas that he’s no Àight risk and no
danger to the community. His brother, Ryan
Bundy, is also seeking release.
A delay would create a conÀict with a
court order from a federal judge in Oregon.
She wants Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and
several co-defendants returned to Portland
by Monday.
There, they face charges in a U.S. wildlife
refuge occupation this year.
In Nevada, the defendants are among
19 people facing charges in an April 2014
standoff that stopped federal agents rounding
up cattle.
LA PINE (AP) — Investigators say a
body recovered from a La Pine, Oregon,
home is that of a woman who has been
dead for about ¿ve months.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s
Of¿ce tells The Bend Bulletin that
paramedics went to the home Friday after
the woman’s sister called to report that
she had fallen outside. After arriving to
help the woman, the paramedics noticed
a strange smell and called the sheriff’s
of¿ce.
The woman who fell told authorities
her sister had died ¿ve months earlier.
Instead of reporting it, the woman said she
became depressed and started drinking.
Sheriff’s Capt. John Bocciolatt said he
believes the woman has a “psychological
malady.”
The cause of death has yet to be deter-
mined. An autopsy has been scheduled.
!
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R
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WINN
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Cage Ashby
Dekklan Shawn Farley
Edith Mickelsen
Ember Bissinger
Gracielee Siler
Justin Emanuel
Laivin Lopez
L.J. Bishop
Lyla Grace Williams
Mason Anthony Munoz
Milo Mitzenberg
Seamus Kenneth Levi
Padgett
Shepherd Redd Eddy
Sterling Danger Middleton
Sylas Aparicio
May 8th
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