WHAT BEGAN WITH A WASHINGTON STATE MUDSLIDE TURNED INTO AN EVICTION AND THE MURDER OF A CANADIAN AND HER HUSBAND.
IT WILL GO DOWN IN AMERICAN CRIME HISTORY AS AN EPIC FUGITIVES’ TALE.
On a Saturday morning in March 2014, a massive mudslide devastated a rural riverside neighbourhood in the Cascade Mountain foothills near Oso, Wash., killing 44 people.
One of the few survivors was John Blaine Reed, 53, a violent repeat felon who lived on the banks of Stillaguamish River. He told reporters of the lightningfast fury of the slide, which experts say was years in the making, and how it left his property condemned and uninhabitable.
Two years later, in April, police say, Reed unleashed a fury of his own, likewise a long time coming.
Evicted from his land, and feuding with his neighbours — Monique Patenaude, 46, formerly of Burnaby, B.C., and her American husband, Patrick Shunn, 45 — he shot both dead at close range, then recruited his younger brother, Tony Clyde Reed, also an ex-con, to help hide the bodies, police say.
What followed will go down in American crime history as an epic fugitives’ tale.
The pair headed south in their mother’s car through the great western mountain ranges into the deserts of Arizona, where they got a new car and a bit of cash from friends, then west to the Mexican border crossing near San Diego, where they are thought to have slipped across to Tijuana, for a few weeks of harried freedom.
That ended with John Reed’s capture by Mexican police Friday.
Now, he is in an Arizona prison cell, awaiting an extradition hearing on Thursday that will likely see him sent back to face aggravated murder charges in Washington.
His capture came about through equal parts police work and fraternal betrayal. Police were already closing in, chasing repeated sightings in Baja, Mexico, when Tony, who had faced the same charges, turned himself in at the San Diego border in May.
He led officers to the bodies, which they had buried in a shallow grave under a fallen fir tree, off a gravel logging road near Oso.
Tony’s murder charges have now been dropped. He pleaded guilty in June to rendering criminal assistance in a deal that will see him called as a key witness against his brother.
The crime tormented a community still wounded by the natural disaster.
Both victims were freespirited and popular, having met at the Burning Man festival in Nevada and married soon after. They commuted back and forth from British Columbia before finally settling in Oso just before the mudslide.
Shunn was a former U.S. army ranger who served in Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama in 1989 that deposed dictator Manuel Noriega. He worked as an engineer in Kirkland, near Seattle, for a company that refurbishes aircraft interiors. Patenaude had worked for an organization helping disabled people.
They lived on a farm with many animals along the Stillaguamish, known for its salmon. They were reported missing April 12 after failing to show up for an Iron Maiden concert with friends, who drove by and noticed a dog running free.
Police believe the couple were killed the day before, the result of the long-standing feud with John Reed, with whom they shared a driveway.
He once threatened to shoot them for clearing brush between their properties. Tensions grew worse after the mudslide, when Reed was forced to sell his land to the county in a buyout, in a deal that closed just before the murders.
After Patenaude complained he was still squatting on it, Reed was visited by officials and ordered to leave, which a county official told police made him “extremely unhappy.”
Court records show he threatened emergency workers, and once went to the Oso Fire Hall and made “a loud comment about driving his truck through the building and taking everyone out with him.”
There were also reports of sexual harassment.
All this, police believe, is what led to the murders.
Investigators found the missing couple’s vehicles — a Land Rover and a Jeep, both stained with blood — had been run off a cliff into the woods and concealed under branches.
Surveillance video recorded them passing by on a logging road in convoy at 3:30 a.m. the day of the suspected murders, indicating two people were involved in the disposal.
Six hours later, the same camera captured a red pickup, of the sort owned by John Reed, with a winch on the front, which appears to have been used to pry the Land Rover off an embankment where it was stuck.
That pickup was later found in the garage of Faye Reed, 77, and Clyde Reed, 81, the brothers’ parents. There was blood on the floorboards and the ownership had been transferred to Faye the day before.
Police allege the brothers got help from their parents, including money and a vehicle, a Volkswagen that was later found in Phoenix.
In June, the parents were charged with rendering criminal assistance, after Clyde Reed allegedly told police he did not know where his sons were, but even if he did, he would not say.
Three days after the murders, the brothers tried to cash a $96,000 cheque from the sale of John Reed’s property, but the bank refused to honour it. Police later managed to stop payment altogether, putting further pressure on the fugitives.
Shunn’s family also filed a lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages for wrongful death, which a lawyer said was mainly to ensure the Reeds could not access to money to finance their flight.
THE PAIR HEADED SOUTH IN THEIR MOTHER’S CAR.