Thursday,

June 29, 2000

Fight guns dredged up

Weapons found in pond may have killed teens

By SCOTT NORTH Herald Writer

Police divers may have gotten to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of two military-style rifles fired during a May 30 melee that left two young men dead.

Two SKS rifles linked to the case were found Tuesday at the bottom of a Lynnwood detention pond, a Snohomish County judge was told Wednesday.

Detectives were led to the rifles by John Michael Jauregui, 24, who has admitted firing one of the weapons the night Jesse Stoner and Jason Thompson, both 18, were fatally shot, according to search warrants filed in connection with the case. He claims he fired the gun into the air.

Snohomish County prosecutors believe another alleged gunman, Dennis J. Cramm, 17, fired the fatal bullets into the back of the car carrying Stoner and Thompson. He is charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

Forensic tests are planned on the rifles, which were found Tuesday in a detention pond off 52nd Avenue W. by divers with the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office, said Jim Townsend, the county's chief criminal deputy prosecutor. Investigators recovered all of one weapon and most of another.

Townsend declined to say whether investigators believe they have enough evidence to scientifically link the weapons to bullet fragments recovered from the victims.

The discovery of the rifles was aired Wednesday during an Everett District Court bail hearing for Cramm's father, Dale B. Cramm, 44. He's been charged with three drug-related felonies, and on Tuesday was arrested for allegedly intimidating a witness.

Prosecutors asked Judge Pro Tem Fred Gillings to order the elder Cramm jailed in lieu of $200,000 bail, payable by cash only. Gillings granted the request, saying "the court has to proceed with an abundance of caution."

During the hearing, Townsend alleged that Dale Cramm has intimidated Jauregui, a former housemate, and may also have tampered with evidence. After the shootings, the elder Cramm had asked Jauregui to "cut both these weapons up and to put them in a body of water," Townsend alleged.

As the allegations were outlined in court, Dale Cramm sat silent, shaking his head. Public defender Martin Mooney called the $200,000 bail "unreasonable and excessive" and also questioned Jauregui's veracity.

"It is hard to say how credible this witness is," he said.

Stoner and Thompson died when seven bullets hit the car they were riding in as it left the melee at the Cramms' home south of Everett. The teens fled when an arranged fistfight between Dennis Cramm and a 16-year-old south Snohomish County youth erupted in gunfire. The fight reportedly was watched by a few dozen young people and as many as 10 adults, including Dale Cramm.

Jauregui was a witness to the fistfight and allegedly was carrying two handguns, which somebody grabbed from him and began firing, according to court papers. He'd earlier denied firing any weapon. Prosecutors last week charged him with riot, a felony described as being armed with a deadly weapon and acting with three or more people to unlawfully use and threaten force against another. He's been jailed in lieu of $100,000 bail.

But on Tuesday Jauregui told police "he had not been totally honest" in his earlier statements about the shooting, according to two search warrants detectives filed Wednesday. Jauregui began talking with detectives "in part for consideration of lesser charges," the documents say.

Among other things, Jauregui said that at one point on May 30, he grabbed an SKS rifle and "shot it into the air about five or six times, in an attempt to get people cleared out of there," the search warrants say.

Jauregui also told detectives that after the shooting, Dale Cramm brought him the two SKS rifles that were fired that night, stuffed inside a pair of waders, and asked him to cut them up and get rid of them, according to the search warrant. Jauregui said he'd told Dale Cramm that he'd tossed the weapons into Puget Sound, but instead placed them in a Lynnwood detention pond.

Jauregui also said the elder Cramm had given him money to leave the state, which he did for a time.

Jauregui said that since the shootings Dale Cramm has purchased body armor and another SKS and talked about trying to convert the weapon for fully automatic fire, according to search warrants. He alleged the man also has claimed ties to a white supremacist group.

Dale Cramm has threatened to shoot deputies if his son is harmed, Jauregui told police.

Royce Ferguson, who represents Dennis Cramm, said there are good reasons to be skeptical about Jauregui's allegations. Search warrants show the man has claimed Ferguson suggested he leave town for a while after the shooting, an allegation the Everett lawyer vigorously denied.

"I've never told anybody to go out and break the law," he said.