Updated at 5:45 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
An attorney speaking for Ron Reynolds and his now-grown son Jonathan Reynolds said a press conference with the two men might help them clear the cloud that’s been hanging over them for almost 13 years, especially after they were named last month by an inquest jury as responsible for the homicide of former trooper Ronda Reynolds in their Toledo home.
[1]Ron Reynolds
That will happen tomorrow in the Olympia office of Cordes Brandt, attorneys at law.
Ronda Reynolds, 33, was preparing to leave her husband of less than a year when she was found with a bullet in her head, covered up by a turned-on electric blanket on the floor of a closet in their Toledo house. It was Dec. 16, 1998.
Ron Reynolds, principal of Toledo Elementary School, told deputies his wife committed suicide. His three sons, Jonathan, then 17, David, 14, and Joshua, 10, were allowed to leave as the first deputy arrived.
Olympia lawyer Rick Cordes said Ron Reynolds will be joined by his present wife and four of his five sons tomorrow.
Cordes will make some comments and he expects Ron Reynolds to speak, to present the Reynolds’ family point of view in some fashion.
[2]Jonathan Reynolds
“I don’t know, I know he wants to say something – we’ve not rehearsed it – I don’t know that he knows exactly what he’s going to say,” Cordes said.
The attorney said he expects Jonathan Reynolds will answer questions, but won’t offer any prepared remarks.
“Not Jon, he’s the most vulnerable, and he’s just shy,” Cordes said. “He doesn’t want to get up in front of TV cameras.”
Nobody has been charged in the death, and the Lewis County prosecutor made it clear there is not enough admissible evidence to prosecute them criminally. The jury during last month’s coroner’s inquest was able to make its findings based only on a preponderance of evidence, a lesser standard than a criminal proceeding.
Newly elected Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said he held the inquest in an attempt to settle the controversial death.
Ron Reynolds’s then-attorney said his client lost his opportunity to clear his name when sheriff’s deputies neglected to perform gunpowder residue tests on him at the scene.
[3]Ronda Reynolds
Initially labeled by the sheriff’s office and then-Coroner Terry Wilson to be a suicide, the manner of death has been changed repeatedly over the years back and forth between undetermined and suicide as it was reinvestigated, moved through a civil suit brought by Ronda Reynolds’ mother, Barb Thompson, and finally last month was deemed by the coroner to be a homicide.
The television show 48 Hours, chronicled the events during the inquest, and expect to air their story next spring.
The case was the subject for true crime writer Ann Rule’s book last year, that put forth a theory that Jonathan Reynolds or some of his friends were responsible.
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Read the most recent story, “Breaking news: Ron, Jonathan Reynolds arrested, and released” from Friday October 28, 2011, here [4]