Judge orders change to death
certificate for former state trooper
Brandon
Swanson / The (Centralia) Chronicle Barbara Thompson, left, hugs friend Kim
Edmonson on after a jury's unanimous decision in November that the Lewis County
coroner was wrong to rule the 1998 death of Thompson's daughter, Ronda
Reynolds, a suicide.
A judge Friday morning said he
will order the Lewis County Coroner to remove suicide as the official cause of
death on Ronda Reynolds' death certificate.
The ruling was a partial victory
for the mother of the former Toledo state trooper, who died of a gunshot wound
to the head at her home in 1998.
Thurston County Superior Court
Judge Richard Hicks said Reynolds' death certificate must be changed, but he
did not tell Coroner Terry Wilson how it should be changed. Hicks declined to
order that the cause of death be changed to homicide, which Reynolds' family
had requested, saying he did not have authority to do so.
Hicks said Wilson could call an
inquest — a judicial inquiry into a cause of a death, usually before a jury —
to make the determination.
"In my view, he should
either change the death certificate within 10 days of my order, or convene an
inquest, which I cannot order him to do," Hicks said of Wilson.
Wilson, a physician's assistant
in Centralia and part-time elected coroner, said in a phone interview later
Friday he will do whatever the judge orders him to do.
Wilson said he has never called for
a coroner's inquest during his nearly 30 years in the position. Whether he does
so will await consultations with his lawyer, he said, though he sees only two
choices.
"You either change it to
homicide or you change it to undetermined," Wilson said. "Those are
the only options at this point."
Hicks' Friday ruling follows an
unprecedented civil trial over which he presided in November, in which a Lewis
County jury that listened to testimony over two weeks found that Wilson's
suicide determination was inaccurate.
Reynolds' mother, Barbara
Thompson of Spokane, has fought for 11 years to prove her daughter did not
commit suicide, insisting that the Lewis County Sheriff's office badly botched
the investigation.
Reynolds, 33, was found dead by
her husband in her Toledo home Dec. 16, 1998, a bullet through her head and a
pillow over her face. She was covered by a turned-on electric blanket.
Wilson originally listed the
cause of death as undetermined, but he changed the ruling three times before
settling on suicide.
The only other people home at the
time of the death were Reynolds' husband, Ron, and his two boys. At the time of
her death, Reynolds was preparing to leave her marriage, which was less than a
year old, and Barbara Thompson has tried to cast suspicion on Ron Reynolds, a
Toledo school principal.
The immediate impact of Friday's
ruling was not immediately clear, but further legal maneuvering is likely.
The Lewis County Sheriff's Office
has declined to reopen the investigation. And Lewis County Prosecutor Michael
Golden indicated following November's jury ruling that will not pursue any
criminal prosecution unless the sheriff's office brings him evidence of a
homicide.
A coroner has five options when
choosing the manner of death: homicide, suicide, accident, natural or
undetermined.
One of Barbara Thompson's
supporters in court Friday, though, said an "undetermined" listing
would be unsatisfactory.
"Undetermined doesn't settle
well in a mother's stomach," said Julie Colbert, a cousin of Ron Reynolds
who sat with Thompson in court Friday. "Undetermined is not an
answer."
Wilson confirmed Friday he has
decided not to seek an eighth term as coroner this fall, but not because of the
Reynolds case.
"I have no doubt if I
decided to I could win if I ran again," he said. "But I've put in my
time."