By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A judge this afternoon ordered a 24-year-old Winlock man held on $500,000 bail following his arrest for a sexual assault of an 8-year-old girl in a Mossyrock-area campground almost five years ago.
Reginald L. Juntunen was identified only late last month as a suspect through DNA, according to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office.
He was in Lewis County Superior Court yesterday on an unrelated matter when he was taken into custody.
Temporary defense attorney Bob Schroeter told the judge Juntunen is a graduate of Winlock High School and a life-long resident of the South Lewis County town.
Charging documents in the case allege the child was anally raped by a dark-skinned male wearing a hoodie and a stocking cap who forced her into the public restroom.
The girl, who is now 12, said she rode her bicycle to the nearby bathroom when she saw the man.
She said he told her he had a knife and to stop screaming, and he left in a yellowish car, according to the documents.
Deputies at the time collected a tissue the girl had wiped herself off with when she returned to the family’s motor home, the documents state.
On July 2, the sheriff’s office received a report from the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory declaring a match with Juntunen.
Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Joely O’Rourke said his DNA would have been entered into the system from a previous felony.
Juntunen told detectives yesterday he’d been to the park camping with his family when he was nine years old and two years ago fishing with a friend, but not in 2007 when he was 19 years old.
“When asked by Detective Callas if he could explain how his DNA was recovered from semen found on a female child, Juntunen’s eyes got very large, he appeared to be in shock, and he simply said ‘no’,” charging documents state.
O’Rourke said she has not yet spoken with the victim, and doesn’t know where she is from.
Juntunen is charged with first-degree rape, first-degree rape of a child and first-degree kidnapping with sexual motivation. Each offense carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
The Winlock man is currently in Lewis County Drug Court, having entered in connection with a case in which he allegedly sold jewelry to a Centralia boutique that had been stolen in a February burglary in Winlock.
Yesterday he was in court to plead not guilty to burglary and theft related to a case in which he and another individual allegedly were involved in a May break-in at another Winlock residence and a stolen banjo and guitar were sold to a pawn shop.
He has a 2008 drug conviction.
Juntunen is represented by Chehalis attorney Chris Baum.
He will return to court next Thursday morning to make his plea in this new case.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Drugs don’t “make” anyone do anything… Drugs take every bad character trait that u have and exacerbate it but they don’t create new ones.. I should know im an addict….his desire to rape small children is all his own and was not created by drugs, just brought to the surface as the substances made him feel free and invincible. A sex offender isn’t created by drugs…they are created long before they begin to use to cover up whatever fucked them up to begin with…it’s a cycle that Ihope his victim can break free from
LALA ISNT HIS GIRLFRIEND Y’ALL
Well, let’s see…. Drug Court? Fail… so now he goes to trial for that offense. Top it off with two more (including the alleged kiddie rape), and this guy is going to be taking up a lot of time in the court system of Lewis County.
LaLa is most likely his girl friend. She has a son, she had better be checking her little boys butt for Reggie Rash. He and his step brothers life style can be seen on the Washington Courts web site, all lived in Winlock and went to the JW church, got good leads as to whose house to burgle after bible study.
People like this guy and James Reeder should be publicly tortured to death as slowly as possible, after being subjected to every single act they perpetrated on their victim ten times over. An eye for an eye . . .
Thank you for asking Monkey says. Yes, i did give a statement to the police and yes it was more than odd that a male was exiting the womans restroom. It did not take long for police to get there. I looked under stalls yes (I believe a lot of people do that, myself also looking for anything weird, including rats and snakes!), I was in the restroom for about 2-3 minutes, I did hear someone back in the shower stal, no water running true. It does take time to shower, before and after the actual time of the water running. But, I did not hear a single sound that would have led me to believe that something was going on. I then started walking back to my campsite when my son came towards me, he had to use the restroom, so I went and waited for him. Thats when he ran out from the womans restroom. Believe me I would have stepped in if I would have known.
@lala. lol we dont know the whole story. Yes, yes we do. He took a little girl by knife point, took her into the restroom, raped her (police told me other things also) then ran away. 2 eye witnesses and the little girl went back to her campsite were her family cleaned the mess up(DNA) with paper towels and called the police. Theres your whole story!!!
I’m curious, you were in the rest rooms at the time he assaulted her, you didn’t hear anything that sounded like a little girl being assulted? Did you provide a statement to law enforcement?
I would think a person who “checks under stall doors” would notice something odd about sounds coming from a shower without water running.
Didn’t you find it odd a adult male just exited a womens restroom you were just in,and in a hurried state.
I would think being the person you described yourself as, you would have been curious enough to go back in there to see what was up.
My family was camping there when this happened. This day has haunted me a long, long time. I am the person that used the restroom when he had her in the shower stall. My “morning” coffee had hit me, so I walked up to restroom, I am the type of person to check, so looked under stall doors. I was aware of someone in the shower, but of course didn’t look. I went to restroom and then washed my hands. I went outside and waited for my son to finish. I heard the womans door slam, bang loudly and saw him running away.
I guess, what I’d like to say as a mother, no just a human being!!! If I had any clue what horrible assault that was happening to that little girl, I would have done anything in my power to stop him. My belief is the best form of justice would have been for him to be beat senseless with a baseball bat. Then he wouldnt have been able to run from the scene, hell he wouldnt have walked away or ever again.
Maybe the case against Juntunen isn’t as bad to his friends because they know the truth… he’s really as big as an 8 year old too, so even though the attack was terrible, it may not have been as painful to the girl as we might assume.
It was a terrible thing that happened, and I don’t mean to jest, but I can’t figure out why someone would defend him.
@ Lala, you say you aren’t making excuses for your “friend”, but that’s all you’re doing. And I agree with Ina Twilight Zone in that it must be awesome to always have those drugs to use as yet another excuse for his actions.
It’s a bit like that old saying: If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it just might be a… well, you get the idea. Go ahead and keep on living in dreamland… your friend will need you to give him money for commissary while he’s locked up. After all, he’s a “good person”… right?
Lala – would you be so quick not to judge if this had been your daughter?
@Lala,
Perhaps I should have a softer heart like yours, but I have known men very well (family-type men, like everyone’s favorite “grandpa” in church) that no one ever thought would harm a child, yet everyone was wrong. Not saying that all those fav guys are really bad guys, but it seems that just because “it doesn’t seem possible” then it didn’t happen. I have also heard stories of men raping little girls, then telling their boss (girls’ father) that it was only because they “loved the girls, and never meant them harm”. riiiight
It the worst part of all is when those same guys, and the family that defends them, makes ME the bad guy for disassociating with them. I WILL judge their actions, because it is my job to be DISCERNING. If I discern evil from someone’s actions, I will judge not to be around them or think happy thoughts of them.
I will also like to refer you to the Phelps articles, where the jury declared Mr. Phelps guilty, and yet all sorts of people that “knew that he could never do such a thing” dragged the victim through the mud. I do believe that her parents thought that they knew Mr. Phelps better than that, too.
I do hope that you really mean that you expect a serious trial and punishment if he is guilty, but to think that you can handle this case with kid gloves because he’s your friend? It even sounds like you believe that he is guilty, but are still giving him a pass because his good outweighs his bad.
Still, it must be nice to have a drug episode to blame the blackout on, and not have to claim any wrongdoing because of it. I’m sure that little girl wishes that she’d blacked out too, and not felt it, and not had to think about it every time she went to the bathroom and felt the pain of it – physically and mentally.
I just don’t get people like you (and I know more than a few of them from the above mentioned experiences), but I guess that we can agree to disagree. Someone needs to have a bleeding heart for these dredges of society. And what a poor society that we live in, where we trash the helpless and defend the bad guys.
All my point was, I’ve known him for 6+ years, before and after this happened. I knew him at the time and at the time of this he was different than he is now. I’m not trying to make excuses for him but anyone around him feels the same way about this horrible thing. Most of us our in complete shock. Yes he has priors but they’re drug charges and that’s also part of my original point. None of us know the whole story and I will not be quick to judge someone I’ve known for so long in such a horrible way. I hope if he is guilty he gets the same trial and punishment as anyone else who would do such a horrible thing to a child. By no means do I think he should be pardoned from anything just because I know him personally.
@Lala – No “good person” rapes an 8 year-old child, you moron! The guy is a piece of shit, just like James Reeder. He deserves to rot in the depths of Hell AFTER he gets a taste of what it is like to be repeatedly forced to engage in sex against his will while he is in prison.
@Lala – http://www.themattmaherstory.com — “I’m That Guy”
Matt Maher was a very good guy – upstanding in community, church, etc. until one night when he got drunk, drove his car, and killed a father. He was a good guy, until he killed someone.
When he realized his mistake, he immediately owned up to it, not blaming it on the alcohol, but on his actions that led up to that night.
Matt did a terrible thing, but he manned up and owned it. He sits in jail now, waiting out his time. He has said sorry to the family and they forgave him.
Now that is what I call a “good guy” doing the right thing – not hiding behind drugs, alcohol, or so-called friends.
And please don’t think that I equate drunk driving to rape of a child – it’s just an example of someone who messed up and then fessed up. SOB that rapes a child should get a public hanging.
No matter how much time he does, IF he comes back to this area I hope that he realizes that he has a target on his back.
He’ll get his day in court. I do wonder if the residential burglary charge came before or after he was accepted into drug court. It will be interesting to see how his defense explains how his DNA was found on some tissue paper at that park in 2007, when he stated he was never there any time that year.
If he pleads out he’ll probably do about ten years,give or take,with level three life time registration as a S.O.
Lala, I don’t know what is worse, the person who commits an act like this against a child (or any other human being, for that matter), or the person who makes up all sorts of excuses for why someone did something.
You say he is a good person. Sorry, but you are WRONG… good people don’t lure small children into a public restroom to do things to them. This was no “mistake”…
You say it was the drugs and the crowd he was around. Sorry, but you are WRONG… AGAIN. Was anyone holding a gun to his head and saying “take these drugs”? I highly doubt it. Was anyone telling him “you have to hang around with only these people…”? Again, I highly doubt it.
This person made the choices he did through his own free will. Nobody forced him to do ANY of it. He did it all on his own. But, you go right on making up excuses for him… and we’ll see what kind of excuses you can come up with for the next person who does something like this.
@Lala – are you kidding me?!!! Every person on earth is responsible for the choices they make in life. You choose your friends and you make a conscious decision to take drugs or not to take drugs. Yes, people grow wiser with age and can change their lives around. But that does not excuse behaviors of the past. Every person must pay for their crimes.
A mistake you say? Because of the drugs he was using? The people he was hanging out with? All of that is just bull shit. He is being charged with rape of an eight year old! They found his DNA! GUILTY!!!! Hang him!
He is a good person. Every good person makes mistakes. This is a horrible mistake and I am sorry it happened, that girl deserves better. He is by no means a sociopath of any sort. He really is caring and if he did do this is wasnt an act beknownst to him it was an act because of the drugs he got himself involved in when he was involved with the wrong people.
HMMM. His facebook photos portray him as a athletic industrious cleancut Christian family man who’s kids mean everything to him. This seems to contrast the official court records of him as a thief, burglar, fence and drug user.
I have to wonder if his F.B. photos are a ruse by a cunning sociopath, or he is some one who is being constantly “set up” by the law for some reason.
Some of you actually are trying to convince us this future prison trade item is a decent person? Wow, you are some great judges of character. He might fetch a couple packs of smokes for his man when he gets to Walla Walla.