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Here are some of the stories that grabbed readers’ attention this weekend.
Breanne Leigh turned to Brent Luyster — the man who killed her significant other and shot her in the face, leaving her for dead — and held up photos of her young daughters.
“I should not be the one looking them in their face and telling them why their dad is not here. That should be your job. How could you take their dad, Brent? Why did you take their dad from them? I want to know why, why execution style, kill the people you call your friends and family?” Leigh said through tears at Luyster’s sentencing Friday afternoon.
“You’re so ridiculously selfish,” she added. “You know what you did. You choose not to own up to it, though, and hurt everybody as much as you can. Everyone you ever come in contact with you damage, you hurt, you ruin, you wreck — everything.”
Luyster appeared to show little reaction as Leigh read her statement. But he furrowed his brow as the judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release, bringing the saga of one of Clark County’s most notorious murder cases to an end.
The owner of a nuisance house situated across the street from Covington Middle School was sentenced Thursday to six years in prison for drug, weapon and stolen property possession.
William Gregory Rathgeber, 57, of Vancouver pleaded guilty Nov. 28 in Clark County Superior Court to two counts of possession of methamphetamine with the intent to deliver, second-degree possession of stolen property and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm between two cases.
On Nov. 19, 2016, officers with the Safe Streets Task Force, Vancouver Police Neighborhood Response Team and Clark County Tactical Detective Unit, assisted by Southwest Washington Regional SWAT, served a search warrant at Rathgeber’s house, 6114 N.E. 112th Ave., alleging that the house was being used to distribute methamphetamine.
Joshua Vincent only had to ask a few questions before he realized something wasn’t right about the voice on the other end of the line. It wasn’t until much later that he, the caller or anyone else would realized how dire the situation could have been had he not kept her on the line.
Vincent was working the night shift late last March, answering customer service calls for Clark Public Utilities at its offices on Fort Vancouver Way, when 66-year-old Laurel Faught called around 8 p.m. At this point in Vincent’s shift, he’d usually be at a different PUD location, alongside a different cast of co-workers. But, for whatever reason, he spent this night in one spot.
“I can’t tell you why I was there,” he said. “But it was a very good thing I was there, because I got some help from a co-worker who was working at the fire department before and let me know you can get a call out from the fire department without them turning on the sirens.”
The major crimes unit of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a suspicious death at East Vancouver RV and Boat Storage following the discovery of a body there Friday morning.
The sheriff’s office responded at 7:30 a.m. to a call coming from the business, 1306 N.E. 172nd Ave., Sgt. Fred Neiman said.
The man’s body was spotted by a customer of the business, Neiman said. It was located out in the open in a parking lot, which the sergeant described as an open drive-thru area used by customers.
When officers went to the scene, they found the man and decided “the circumstances of the death were suspicious,” Neiman said.
A 35,000-ton ship laden with wheat ran aground in the Columbia River hours after leaving the Port of Vancouver on Thursday afternoon and began taking on water. It was safely escorted by tugs to the Port of Longview Friday morning, where it was due to be examined and repaired.
The vessel, the KM London, is a 656-foot bulk carrier that was drawing 42 feet of water when it ran aground near Crims Island, a few miles downriver from Longview near the hamlet of Stella.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the vessel ran aground on the north side of the navigational channel. Water began leaking into two forward compartments, but the crew followed its emergency response plan and was able to get the flooding under control.
A pilot was aboard the ship and notified the Coast Guard of the grounding at 8:10 p.m. After it was reported, the Coast Guard sent an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and a 29-foot response boat to check for oil leaking into the river, but none was spotted. No injuries were reported.
