Officers arrest suspected reckless driver

Sheriff gets help from grandmother

MOSES LAKE — Martha Schneirla was fed up. She wanted the driver who almost ran over her 10-year-old grandson arrested. So she wrote a letter to her local newspaper.

"If anyone sees a white Nissan car with a driver side mirror missing and both sides of this car messed up, please call, or write down the license plate (number)," Schneirla wrote in the July 20 letter published in the Columbia Basin Herald.

Three days earlier, Grant County sheriff's deputies responded to a reported hit-and-run in the 4900 block of Alma Road, just north of Moses Lake's city limits.

At the scene, the responding deputies were told by a 10-year-old boy, Schneirla's grandson, that while riding his bicycle he was nearly run over by a "very fast car." The boy was not hurt.

"He's still devastated though and he's very scared of the cars," Schneirla said Wednesday of her grandson. "He screams at the cars. He's still shaken up."

The car went off both sides of the roadway after nearly hitting the boy, striking fences and smashing mailboxes. The two men who were in the car headed toward the Larson Subdivision.

But as the two subjects drove off, the vehicle's driver's side mirror, which had been torn off in the collisions, remained at the scene, according to the Grant County Sheriff's Office.

Investigators with the sheriff's office found a vehicle within the subdivision that appeared to have damage consistent with the incident that day. However, they later confirmed the mirror left at the scene belonged to a Nissan vehicle, not the Ford they found.

So the investigation was stalled, leading Schneirla to write her letter.

On Monday, the 10-year-old boy's father called the sheriff's office, telling them he received an anonymous phone call from someone who read Schneirla's letter. The caller provided the location of the suspect's vehicle.

The boy and his father went to have a look. Upon arriving at the address, the boy immediately recognized the vehicle as the one that allegedly just missed hitting him. Then he recognized the driver walking towards the vehicle, the sheriff's office reported.

Ray Allen Jones, 24, of Moses Lake, was soon contacted and questioned by sheriff's deputies. He admitted to driving the vehicle that struck the fences along Alma Road, the sheriff's office stated.

"It could be anybody's child next time," Schneirla said. "(People) do speed down Alma Road, severely. The people who live here go 35 miles per hour. Everybody else goes anywhere from 60 to 80, I've even seen people go probably 100 down through here."

"Without the help of our citizens we are only half as good," said Chief Deputy John Turley.

Deputies soon realized there was even more to the story. Jones was also wanted on two warrants from Adams County. And he was found in possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, Turley said.

Jones was later booked into Grant County Jail on anticipated charges of hit-and-run with property damage, no insurance, reckless endangerment, possession of under 40 grams of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

A narcotics detective was summoned to the scene and a warrant to search Jones' residence was obtained. Investigators found nearly 42 grams of marijuana with a street value of more than $1,000 inside the residence along with an assortment of prescription drugs. Several pot smoking pipes were found, authorities said, along with digital and triple-beam scales. Investigators found a receipt book with names from various drug transactions, two drug identification handbooks, packaging material and $335 in cash, Turley said.

"It was just beautifully done, with the paper, the person reading the paper, and then (the sheriff's office) arrested (Jones) that night," Schneirla said. "Everything just worked perfectly. It was like a chain reaction."

Jennifer A. Caldwell, 21, and Bryan Samuel Bundies, 22, both of Moses Lake, were also arrested at the residence, in the 500 block of Crest Drive. They were booked on suspicion of maintaining a drug house and possession of both marijuana and prescription medication with intent to deliver in a school zone.