Updated at 5:07 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The 94-year-old woman found dead yesterday in a river in the south end of the Boistfort Valley was legally blind and liked to walk along the river on her property, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
Alice Cripe was discovered down a steep embankment, resting against some rocks in the South Fork of the Chehalis River on her own property, according to authorities.
Her death was an accident, Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said today. Alice Cripe fell down, hit her head and drowned, according to McLeod.
The sheriff’s office doesn’t know exactly when it happened.
Family members from California visited her house on the 1000 block of Wildwood Road on Monday night, leaving around 9 p.m.; and when they returned yesterday morning could not find her inside but subsequently located her body, according to the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff’s Office Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said the bank was perhaps 10 to 15 feet down, although detectives don’t know for sure how far she fell.
Fire Chief Gregg Peterson said she is a long time resident of the Boistfort Valley and she lived alone.
It was just a little more than a year ago at the north end of the Boistfort Valley that 8-year-old Nicholas Matchett drowned after he apparently slipped off the steep bank behind his home into the river.