Updated at 9:03 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod has reissued the arrest warrants for Ron and Jonathan Reynolds after investigating the possibility of juror misconduct.
McLeod, in a news release this evening, said the allegation of misconduct was unfounded.
[1]Ron Reynolds
The warrants were issued last Wednesday evening, following the conclusion by an inquest jury the pair were responsible [2] for the homicide of the former state trooper Ronda Reynolds in 1998.
McLeod quashed [3] them on Thursday to investigate what he called a legal issue [4] that was brought to his attention.
McLeod tonight said he investigated the matter: A witness had reported seeing a woman in the lobby of the Lewis County Law and Justice Center putting a book about the Ronda Reynolds case in her purse between the hours of 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on either last Tuesday or Wednesday, McLeod wrote in a news release.
The inquest jury had been instructed not to read up on the case.
McLeod stated the “witness” was unable to pick out a juror as being the person they had seen – from a photo montage. Also, the “witness” could not say if the woman had been wearing a jurors badge.
Also, McLeod wrote, he concluded the alleged misconduct could not have occurred on either of those days during those times because the jurors were in the jury room.
The warrants were signed this evening and will be delivered to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office in the morning so they can be served, according to McLeod.
The coroner said he had planned to ask each juror – and the two alternates – about the matter under oath on Friday morning in open court.
He will still reconvene the inquest at 9 a.m. on Friday, and read his final orders on the coroner’s inquest into the record. The jurors won’t have to come back in, he said.