Romig testifies in shooting trial

EPHRATA — Earl Romig told the jury the day he was shot was the perfect day to hunt coyotes.

The deputy took the stand Wednesday to testify in Robbie Joe Marcher’s trial.

Marcher, 40, Moses Lake is accused of shooting Romig, a Grant County Sheriff’s deputy, and leaving him to die in a snow-covered field near Soap Lake on Jan. 10, 2008. He is charged with assault in the first degree, unlawful hunting of big game in the second degree and failing to summon assistance.

Romig went hunting in the afternoon, after spending the early part of the day with his fiancé in their apartment. 

“I love to hunt. It’s not only what I like to do, it’s what I do,” Romig said, adding he started hunting when he was 6 or 7 years old.

Romig said he was dressed in a white shirt with a blue cross on it and brown camouflage pants, when he started hunting that day. Since it wasn’t deer season, he didn’t wear orange clothing. He explained the law only requires him to wear orange if he or other people were hunting deer in the area.

“(Deer season is) the second week in October,” he said. “It lasts for modern firearms for two weeks.”

After spending some time in one of his usual locations for hunting coyotes, Romig moved down the road to a nearby orchard. He parked his truck on the east end of the orchard, he started walking west, he said, adding visibility was good that day

As Romig walked down one of the rows in the orchard, he spotted fresh tire tracks, he said. Following the tracks, he saw where the vehicle hit a tree and got stuck. Then near the corner of the orchard, he spotted the passenger’s side of the truck.

About a 100 yards away from the corner of the field, Romig saw an older man, wearing a trucker’s hat, step out from behind the pickup truck.

“I can see he’s got his rifle,” Romig said. “All the sudden, he throws his rifle up onto his shoulder, pointing at me as I’m standing in the middle of this row of trees, and I’m wondering what’s going on.”

He told the jury, he got an uneasy feeling the man was going to fire at him and moved into the trees. From there, he headed into a field next to the orchard where he proceeded to start hunting.

When he was walking back Romig said visibility was good and he could see through the poplar trees on the edge of the field.

“I just kind of get this eerie feeling of maybe it’s not such a good idea to go back into that orchard,” the deputy said. “I stopped there on a small knoll there, and visibility is good and I’m checking the trees in the direction I’m going, I’m looking for this individual and I don’t see him any more. I take one step down this knoll.”

Then he turned, and heard a sound like “an angry bee” approaching him and a loud snap. Then his shirt bucked in front of him and he collapsed to the ground. He was shot from behind.

After screaming into the snow, Romig then described how he managed to turn around and face the woods.

“I’m paralyzed from the waist down. My legs just felt like nothing,” he said. “I looked to wear the shot came from. I saw a guy standing there and he’s walking off. It looked like the same guy I saw cross behind the truck.”

Romig described how he waited until he heard a vehicle in the orchard, and then fired three shots into the air. Then he struggled to his feet, moving toward the road, using the gun as a cane. He fell to the ground a short distance a way, thinking he was going to die, he said.

He then spotted Don Thill’s truck on the corner of Road 21 and Road B and fired a shot above it. Hearing the shot and Romig’s shouts, Thill called 9-1-1 and found the deputy. Then Romig asked for the phone.

“I just told her exactly where I was,” he said, adding as he wiped tears away. “The person I wanted to say good bye to was my fiancé.”

He also described how the deputies and Ephrata Fire Chief Jeremy Burns arrived and lifted him from the area, carrying him to a nearby vehicle.

Brett Billingsley, the defense attorney asked Romig about the vehicle he spotted in the orchard, which he described in his testimony as being like a Ford F-150. He asked about whether officers should be able to identify a vehicle type on sight.

Marcher’s father brought a GMC truck into the orchard that afternoon, he said during opening statements.

“I usually just run the registration and it comes back with that information,” Romig answered.

Billingsley asked if the clues Romig had about the truck lead him to believe it was a Ford F-150.

Romig said it possibly looked like an older Ford, adding he only saw the outline of the truck through the trees. He said he wasn’t close enough to see any decals and didn’t have the registration because he was facing the passenger side of the vehicle.

Billingsley also asked why Romig initially reported he saw the truck drive away from the scene.

“I may have said, ‘I saw the truck driving away,’ but my interpretation of that was ‘I can see this truck, I can hear this truck, moving away in the direction of Road B,’” Romig said.

Billingsley also pointed out Romig initially described the shooter’s hat as being, ‘a weird hat.’

“They either had hair sticking out the side of their hat or possibly the hat could have had something where it would cover your ears,” Romig answered. “It looked like a trucker hat, that’s what the hat looked like. It didn’t look like a baseball cap you’d see pro-baseball players wearing … but again I’m 100 yards away from this guy, trying to see what his hat looked like.”

The trial continues today.