[1]Family members head to retrieve some personal items this afternoon from the home on Pennel Avenue.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
ONALASKA – Sheriff’s detectives were joined by a team of crime scene specialists from the Washington State Patrol today as they gathered evidence of an apparent homicide in Onalaska, just south of Onalaska Elementary-Middle School.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office says 25-year-old Joshua Vance called 911 at 2:45 a.m. and said he’d just killed his father.
[2]Terry Vance
The father, Terry Vance, 58, was found dead of apparent stab wounds in a bedroom, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office this morning had no explanation as to why.
The front of the beige mobile home on Pennel Avenue just south of Fifth Street was barely visible with both a travel trailer and a fifth wheel parked in front of it. It sits across from the school ball field.
Some neighbors were uneasy about the news, although not everyone was aware anything happened.
Raymond Palm walked over to the yellow police tape blocking at Fourth Street after getting a phone call from a friend this afternoon, he said.
It makes him afraid, a homicide happening so close to his home, Palm said. Onalaska is usually fairly quiet, according to Palm.
“Doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s a big thing,” he said, recalling the triple murder 18 months ago off Gore Road,
Bruce Hood was preparing a planting bed for raspberries a couple of doors up behind the mobile home and wondered what was going on.
“I wondered why the sheriff’s office was there,” Hood said.
The sheriff’s office said deputies happened to be three blocks away when the younger Vance called. They think Joshua Vance attacked his father while he was asleep in bed.
Vance was taken into custody without incident, and taken to Providence Centralia Hospital with cuts to his hand, according to responders. He was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where he was listed in satisfactory condition late this afternoon.
Vance’s grandmother and school-age nephew who live in the home were there but unharmed, according to Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown.
Brown said she didn’t know how Joshua Vance was injured. He will be booked into jail for homicide following his release from the hospital, the sheriff’s office said.
An autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.
A nearby neighbor who didn’t share her name said she thought Terry Vance was a caregiver to his mother, who has lived there for many years.
Dick Zoda was outside finishing cutting down a tree at his home at the end of the block this afternoon. Zoda recalled often being asked to join the family for BBQ whenever he and his dog took walks.
“I was up a lot last night, but I didn’t hear anything,” Zoda said. “It’s hard to imagine what happened there. Can’t imagine.”