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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
April 5, 2012     Shelton Mason County Journal
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April 5, 2012
 
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Thursday, April 5, 2012 -- Week 14 The Voice of Mason County since 1886 -- Published for Mason County and Rosetta LaClair of the Skokomish Nation-- $1 Documents say 23-year-old man beaten to death with baseball bat; 2 suspects being heM By KEVAN MOORE kevan@masoncounty.com A pair of Shelton men, original- ly arrested for first-degree assault and robbery, now face felony "mur- der charges following the death of the victim in the case. Travis Carl Baze, 28, and Ste- phen R.C. Churchill, 29, are charged With murdering 23-year- old Shelton resident Shawn Jo- seph Morrow. They are being held in the Mason County Jail on $250,000 and $350,000 bail, re- spectively. According to court documents, Baze and Churchill lured Mor- row to the public fishing area in the 3900 block of State Route 3 on March 26, to purportedly sell him heroin. Police say that when Morrow ar- rived, Churchill hit him twice in the head with a Shawn metal baseball Morrow bat. Court docu- ments state that Baze and Churchill drove to the pre-determined meeting point around 2 p.m. and waited for Mor- row to arrive. "Inside the car with them was a metal baseball bat that Churchill had brought from his get back into his vehicle and drive ing bleeding caused by a severed residence. Prior to Morrow's arriv- himself across the highway to the artery...On March 29 at 3:01 p.m., al, Churchill exited Baze's vehicle Bayshore Grocery Store where pa- Morrow succumbed to the injuries and hid near a nearby portable trons observed him sitting in his he suffered as a result of being restroom on the property. Upon car covered in blood, struck in the head with a baseball Morrow's arrival he parked near Morrow was transported by am- bat on March 26 and died at Saint Baze's car, exited his vehicle, and bulance to Mason General Hospi- Peter's Hospital in Olympia." approached the driver's door of tal where a CT scan confirmed that Police say that shortly after the Baze's car on foot. Upon reaching he was suffering from a significant attack, Churchill and Baze were Baze's door, Churchill stepped out skull fracture and subdural hema- arrested and a bat believed to be from his hidinglocation and struck toma. Morrow was then transport- the one used in the attack was re- Morrow in the head twice with the ed via ambulance to Saint Peter's covered lrom Churchill's bedroom. metal baseball bat, knocking Mor- Hospital in Olympia where he was According to police, both Baze and row to the ground and causing his treated by a neurosurgeon and ad- Churchill admitted their involve- head to bleed." mitted into the Critical Care Unit. ment in the attack. According to a probable cause "Around 4:30 a.m. on March 27, According to court documents, statement, Baze arranged the Morrow's condition worsened as the attack was retribution for meeting with Morrow via voice- the bleeding and pressure on his Morrow allegedly burglarizing the mail and textmessage and Morrow brain increased and he was tak- home of Churchill and his girl- did not know that Churchill would en in for emergency surgery," the friend, Jennifer Hansen, in early be present. After the attack, Baze probable cause statement says. February while the couple was in and Churchill are alleged to have "During the surgery, surgeons had custody at the Mason County Jail stolen $45 from Morrow that he to remove a portion of Morrow's for narcotics violations. Hansen had brought to purchase the her- skull to alleviate the building pres- oin. Morrow somehow managed to sure on his brain due to the ongo- See Murder on page A-S in Mason County By KEVAN MOORE kevan@masoncounty,com The Shelton Police De- partment has released its annual crime report for 2011. Perhaps the most notice- ~h],e,,fig~re from the report is a 137-percent reduction in robberies. "It obviously went down a lot, but there was an un- usual spike in 2010 and it has basically gone down to the usual single-digit rate of eight or nine robberies, per year," said Shelton Police Chief Dave Eklund. Crime in the city was down in other areas, too. Sex offenses went down by seven percent and the prop- efty crimes of theft and auto thefts, were down 14 per- cent and 16 percent. "I think those decreases are partly due to our Crime Prevention Program that we've had for the last few years," Chief Eklund said. "It's been really effective." That crime prevention program, though, saw a decrease in January. With the loss of one officer po- sition at the department, Chief Eklund combined the school resource officer and the crime prevention offi- cer .into one position. The school resource officer obvi- ously works with the schools .while the crime prevention position entails meeting with business owners and homeowners to increase se- curity and prevent crime. In 2011, the police depart- ment responded to 10,604 calls for service, 2,829 case reports were generated, the officers issued a total of 1,566 citations, handled 214 reportable accidents and there were 28 traffic offens- es where drugs were found. While robberies, sex of- fenses and thefts were down, the city saw a spike in burglaries with 80 in 2010 and 130 in 2011, According to the report, detectives worked 422 cases in 2011 and cleared 190 of them compared to 450 cases worked in 2010 with 145 that were cleared. See Report on page A-5 81111!!Ul!!II!!UI;I!IIII2 Regina Lawrence, supervisor for WorkSource in Mason County, left, and Jeanie House, a have helped Micky Jones and others find jobs in Mason County despite a poor economy. Journal photos by Natalie Johnson reemployment specialist, WorkSource helps job seekers were unemployed in Mason County in Jan- uary 2012, the department reports. Neighboring counties show similar By NATALIE JOHNSON trends for 2011. Thurston County's unem- natalie@rnasoneounty.com ployment rate dropped from 8.9 percent to. 8.3 percent, Kitsap County's dropped from 8.6 per~nt to 7.9 percent and Grays Harbor The Washington State Employment Se-County's unemployment dropped from 14.6 curity Department announced last month percent to 13.8 percent. that Mason County's unemployment rate Todd Dixon, area director for Mason dropped one full percentage point between County WorkSource said he has seen a posi- January 2011 and January 2012, from 12.5 tive change in the community. percent to 11.5 percent. "Overall there's just a look and feel in the More specifically, out of a workforce of community that the economy is improving," 24,190, 21,400 were employed and 2,790 he said. "More and more job seekers are go- ing to work." Over the past year, traffic in the Mason County WorkSource has decreased showing that fewer people need the services the or- ganization provides, Dixon said. "We serve at WorkSource people who are unemployed but also people who are under- employed," he said "The number we serve on unemployment has remained steady." Regina Lawrence, supervisor for Work- Source in Mason County, said the local of- fice has helped many people find jobs in the last year, contributing to the county's drop- See Unemployment on page A-5 Hood Canal School searches for leader By NATALIE JOHNSON natalie@masoncoun ty.com The Hood Canal School District is on the hunt for a new superinten- dent for the 2012/2013 school year. On March 29, Tom Churchill, Hood Canal School District super- intendent and principal, announced that he had accepted a job as super- intendent of the Meridian School District in Bellingham. "I've enjoyed my time here," he said. "It's a nice career step for me. The district has a lot of new things happening there." Churchill started at the Hood Ca- nal School District as its assistant su- perintendent/prin- cipal in 2007. "The superin- tendent that was here left mid-year so I picked up his duties about the turn of 2008 and Tom finished out the Churchill year for him," Churchill said. While the past four years have been challenging, Churchill said the district had made See School on page A-5 City looks for input on park renovations By NATALIE JOHNSON and Chestnut Street. North- nataIie@masoncounty.com cliff Park is on Northcliff Road near Holly Court and Terrace View Drive. The Shelton Metropolitan "The neighborhood parks Park District hopes to devel- are the highest "ranking ope two parks in the city in projects within our park the next few years, and is plan, so we chose these two looking for citizen input, specific parks because we al- The two proposed areas ready have property," Parks are the Johnson and North- and Recreation Director cliff neighborhood parks. Mark Ziegler said. "They're Johnson Park is located on the corner of Tobin Avenue See Park on page A-5