This was updated at 7:40 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Lewis County coroner canceled his arrest warrants for Toledo Elementary School Principal Ron Reynolds and his son Jonathan Reynolds saying there’s no reason to arrest the pair.
“There is no purpose in having the warrants served when no criminal charges will be brought against them due to a lack of evidence,” Coroner Warren McLeod stated in a news release this afternoon.
McLeod said the manner of death for former trooper Ronda Reynolds will be changed from undetermined to homicide within two or three days.
The coroner’s announcement followed Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer’s decision this morning not to file charges against the former husband and steps-son of the 33-year-old woman.
Ronda Reynolds was found fatally shot in the head, on the floor of her walk-in closet in their Toledo home on Dec. 16, 1998.
McLeod will reconvene his coroner’s inquest tomorrow morning to read his closing orders on the record.
Update: 7:40 p.m.: Barb Thompson’s lawyer Royce Ferguson this evening opened his email and found Coroner McLeod had notified him just before 4 p.m. he was going to quash the arrest warrants.
Ferguson said he wrote to McLeod urging him not to do that, but didn’t know if it was too late.
He shared the letter he emailed McLeod this evening. It is below.
Dear Coroner McLeod,
Please do not quash the arrest warrants! I have just talked to Barb Thompson. We are flabbergasted! To quash the warrants is acting short of your statutory duty requiring you to (“shall”) issue warrants following the inquest verdicts. By issuing the warrants, you would be done with the case (following changing of the death certificate to homicide). The burden of proceeding would then be on the sheriff to make the arrest, the courts to release the arrestees, and then on the prosecutor to decide to charge or not. By quashing the warrants you are relieving the sheriff of any responsibility to act, as well as the other officials “downstream.” In all candor, it greatly tarnishes what has been stellar performance by you. It will expose you to criticism you need not endure or suffer. Please do not quash the warrants. Additionally, where in the statute does it say you may ignore the duty to issue the warrants because another official elects to not perform his or her duty? You are relinquishing and ceding your authority to them. Again, please complete your statutory duty.
Royce Ferguson
Attorney for Barb Thompson
•••
Read more about today’s events related to the case, here [1]