[1]Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detective Bruce Kimsey speaks to the jury about murder suspect Ricky A. Riffe.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – It was the fifth or sixth trip detective Bruce Kimsey had made to Alaska as he reinvestigated the December 1985 slaying of the elderly Ethel couple.
Over the previous seven years, Kimsey had scoured thousands and thousands of pages contained in the roughly 20 binders on the murder case at the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
He’d reinterviewed witnesses, managed to make sure every piece of evidence was tested for DNA and he was ready to learn what the only living prime suspect would talk about.
Kimsey had learned former Mossyrock area brothers Ricky and John Gregory Riffe moved to Alaska sometime in the late 1980s.
Just days before, Kimsey learned John Gregory had died. The detective was ready to arrest Ricky.
It was July 8, 2012 and Kimsey, along with a team that included a deputy to cover his back, a prosecutor and a private investigator, had arrived in Alaska two days earlier. They flew to Bristol Bay and checked into Antler’s Inn, the only motel in the town of King Salmon.
As they ordered a late lunch, they realized their waitress was the longtime live-in girlfriend of their suspect so they decided to make their visit then, wanting to catch him home alone.
“I don’t remember a road sign or a mailbox that said 15 Wolverine Drive,” Kimsey testified.
He described driving a Dodge Caravan on a gravel road toward the neighboring town, where Alaska State Trooper William Gifford knocked on the door of Riffe’s two-story-type home.
“I hear a male say, ‘Who the f*** is it?” Kimsey said.
Gifford identified himself through the door.
“Rick comes down, opens the door and says ‘come inside, I don’t want to let the mosquitoes in’.”
Detective Kimsey took the witness stand yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court as the fourth week of the murder trial opened.
Riffe, 55, is charged with burglary, kidnapping, robbery and murder of Ed and Minnie Maurin, whose bodies were found on Dec. 24, 1985 dumped on a logging road near Adna, with shotgun wounds in their backs five days after they went missing from their home.
Kimsey said he told the suspect they were there to follow up on the murder of Ed and Minnie Maurin.
“He said, who?” Kimsey testified.
Kimsey reminded him it was the same case he’d been interviewed by police about in 1992.
“He said, ‘oh, okay’,” Kimsey said.
Kimsey was inside the home with Gifford and private investigator Chris Peterson. They made small talk, Riffe mentioning he had COPD as he was breathing though an oxygen hose, according to Kimsey. And smoking at the same time, he said.
Riffe’s responses were short, as he was confronted with what various witnesses had offered connecting him to the crimes, according to Kimsey.
The detective said he told him that Jason Shriver had seen him and his brother inside the Maurin’s car with the elderly couple.
And he just responded with “I don’t know what you want me to say’,” according to Kimsey.
Nearly all of Rife’s answers to various questions included I don’t recall, I don’t know, a shoulder shrug or I don’t have anything to add to that, Kimsey testified.
Right in the middle of the relatively serious interview, the phone rang, and to Kimsey’s surprise, Riffe got up and went to answer it, Kimsey recounted.
The detective mimicked a gruff voice on his end of the call offering one and two word responses; it became apparent the suspect must be talking to his girlfriend, he said.
“He got off the phone and said, ‘I just ordered chicken wings’,” Kimsey testified.
Kimsey said Riffe remained well-controlled and matter-of-fact. He described his demeanor as kind of “flat line.”
“Every time I would ask him a question, he would drag on his cigarette and answer me while exhaling,” he said.
But, Kimsey testified, at the same time, he could detect a vein on his neck throbbing.
“My impression, he’s screaming on the inside,” Kimsey said.
Kimsey was asked what he observed as Gifford told him he was under arrest and what for.
“All he said is I’m gonna need my medication and my cigarettes,” Kimsey said. “His shoulders went down; it looked like it relaxed him, to me.”
Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead asked about the trip to the Bristol Bay Jail Jail
“He appeared to be calm,” Kimsey testified. “He, it appeared, like, the fight was over.”
[2]Ricky A. Riffe, far right, and his defense attorney listen to Kimsey’s testimony in Lewis County Superior Court.