During his investigation of Reynolds’ life, Austin also learned that the 33-year-old Toledo woman had gone by at least 10 aliases and used a “ few” Social Security numbers to take out lines of credit – “ normally an indicator of fraud.”
While married to her first husband, Mark Liburdi, Ronda had told a friend and McCleary neighbor that if she were ever to get a divorce, she would commit suicide by shooting herself with a gun and make it look like a homicide, Austin said.
“ I think there’ s a whole list of reasons I would tell you I still think it’ s suicide, ” Austin told the jury during the second day of testimony in Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod’ s inquest into Ronda Reynolds’ death.
Continuing from Monday, Austin’ s testimony dominated the inquest Tuesday and brought to light unflattering glimpses of Ronda Reynolds’ life.
In April 1997, Reynolds and friend Laurie Hull were convicted of second-degree theft for cashing personal checks to themselves from a closed checking account.
Hull is due to testify this morning.
Reynolds resigned as a trooper from the Washington State Patrol in 1994 after “ double-dipping” – collecting wages and nearly $13,000 in disability at the same time.
“ She had a lot of things going wrong in her life, and they had been going on for quite some time, ” Austin said.
At about 6:20 a.m. on Dec. 16, 1998, Ron Reynolds found his wife dead on the floor of a closet between their bedroom and the master bedroom’ s bathroom. A .32-caliber revolver had been fired into her head just below her right temple.
The handgun was found lying on the left side of Reynolds’ face when police arrived; her left hand still loosely clutching a blanket around her.
“ That told me the gun had been there for some time, ” said Dale Neiser, a retired sheriff’ s detective who also testified Tuesday.
After police had been on the scene for a while, two of Reynolds’ friends arrived at the house in the 100 block of Twin Peaks Drive to take her to the airport. Reynolds was due to stay at her mother’ s house in Spokane for a few days.
However, one friend was expecting to take her to Sea-Tac Airport, the other to Portland International Airport.
Reynolds had bought a plane ticket to depart from Sea-Tac the night before she died, Austin said.
Ron Reynolds, principal of Toledo Elementary School, and his three sons – David, Joshua and Jonathan – will not testify in the inquest, citing their Fifth Amendment rights to avoid any chance of self-incrimination.
While Reynolds’ cause of death was initially determined to be a gunshot wound, her manner of death – natural, homicide, suicide, accidental or undetermined – has never been settled. Former Coroner Terry Wilson initially ruled it undetermined before ruling it suicide, undetermined and then suicide.
A lead investigator on the Reynolds case, Jerry Berry, testified briefly Tuesday by teleconference from Texas.
Berry now works as a part-time security guard at a nursing and retirement center in Texas.
Berry said Bell had told him that Reynolds did not seem suicidal in the days leading up to her death and that he had seen her more emotional before.
While a nearly consumed bottle of Black Velvet whiskey was found on a nightstand next to the bed in the Reynolds’ bedroom, Dr. Daniel Selove said Reynolds did not have any alcohol in her system when he performed an autopsy.
Reynolds had fake but well-maintained fingernails, Selove noted. However, one of them – on the middle finger of her left hand – was found to have a four-millimeter tear.
Austin had concluded the torn fingernail was a result of Reynolds’ packing the day before; there was no evidence that she had been in a struggle.
Reynolds was found along with a personal note written in what appeared to be lipstick on the bathroom mirror: “ I love you, call me, ” along with a Spokane telephone number.
After Reynolds died, her husband mailed in premiums on a $50,000 life-insurance policy that she had with Walmart; she had worked for the company as a security guard in Aberdeen.
McLeod asked Neiser if he thought that was odd.
“ Not at all; that was the logical thing to do, ” Neiser said.
After a jury in a 2009 civil hearing ruled that Wilson’ s last suicide ruling was made arbitrarily and capriciously, a Thurston County Superior Court judge ordered him to review the case again. Wilson refused and appealed the judge’ s order.
When McLeod took office in January, he ruled the manner of death undetermined and later announced there would be an inquest to let a five-person jury decide Reynolds’ manner of death.
The jury doesn’ t have to rule unanimously. However, a homicide ruling would compel the coroner to order the jury to deliberate on naming a suspect.
