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Duane Michael Rader, 35, was being held Friday at the Thurston County Jail. He is charged in Thurston County Superior Court with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree arson, felony harassment, tampering with a witness and fourth-degree assault, according to his criminal information.
A Thurston County Superior Court judge set Rader's bail at $75,000 on Friday afternoon.
According to court documents:
The woman suffered second-degree burns to her legs and was admitted to Madigan Army Medical Center for a week after the February incident. She initially told detectives that she had “accidentally lit herself on fire.”
But she recently separated from Rader, and on Aug. 2, she said she had given “a false statement to police to protect the defendant from losing his military career.”
She said “the defendant had been drinking heavily and came into their bedroom at their home on 12th Court Southeast in Olympia. The defendant told (her) that he had a bullet he was going to put into her head.” She said that when she tried to leave, he grabbed her by the head and slammed it against the kitchen counter. She fell to the floor, and Rader then began pouring lighter fluid on her legs, “saying she was evil and needed to die.”
She said he then lit a match and tossed it on her legs. She said she called 911 and was transported to Madigan.
She said Rader showed up at the hospital and “didn’t want her to tell what really happened because he would go to jail and lose his Army career.”
Rader has a criminal history in the Army that includes two arrests on suspicion of larceny, one in 1998 and the other in 2002, and one arrest in 1999 on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance.
