Members of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office, assisted by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue team, dig out mud from a casket found in a creek on private property in Onalaska on Saturday morning. Once turned over, it was determined the casket was one that had been used by a family as a backyard bar.
No body was found in a casket that was stuck in a creek on private property in Onalaska on Saturday. Particle board and an ice bucket were discovered in the casket, which was determined to have belong to a local couple who had used it as a backyard bar.
Members of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office watch as a casket stuck in the mud in a creek on private property in Onalaska is righted on Saturday morning.
Members of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office dig around a casket stuck in a creek on private property in Onalaska on Saturday. The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue team righted the casket hooking a cable on an all-terrain vehicle to a chain around the coffin.
Members of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office evaluate the area and discuss possible options for the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue team to pull a casket out of the mud in a creek in Onalaska on Saturday.
Instead of a body, a coffin found stuck in a creek near Onalaska contained the makings of a backyard bar — and many shovels full of mud.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod and deputies prepared to set out to recover the casket Saturday morning. It was McLeod’s first casket recovery assignment.
The casket was discovered the previous weekend, and McLeod went to check it out before bringing his team there.
A crew of about 10 people gathered at the coroner’s office in Chehalis at 8 a.m. wearing water boots and ready for a morning walk through the mud and creek.
Before heading out, McLeod told his team that the coffin likely belonged to a family who had lived upriver and had turned it into a backyard bar. The only people that McLeod had been told had been inside of it were Captain Morgan, Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker, he joked.
The other running joke was that the team would find vanished labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa’s body.
Hoffa was involved in organized crime disappeared in the mid-1970s and is believed to have been murdered.
“It’s Lewis County, and nothing’s normal here,” McLeod told The Chronicle with a laugh on Friday. “We’ll have found Jimmy Hoffa, or worse, we’ll find three skulls in there.”
A caravan of cars followed McLeod’s vehicle, which was hauling the coroner’s office trailer, to private property in Onalaska where they could access the creek.
Armed with shovels, the team walked down a clear, wide trail before having to push their way through the bramble to the where the coffin was stuck in the creek.
The foot of the casket was driven into the mud. The half of the metal casket that was not submerged still had its part of the split lid attached so the inside could not be seen.
After checking out the coffin, members of the coroner’s office waited for the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue team to arrive to maneuver the casket so they could see what was inside.
Saturday was a scheduled training day for Search and Rescue, so the coffin recovery was used as joint training for both agencies.
Search and Rescue team members wrapped a chain around the coffin, attached a cable from an all-terrain vehicle to the chain and tried to right the coffin by backing up the ATV.
The coffin stayed put, so coroner’s office members grabbed their shovels.
They dug mud away from around the casket, and the Search and Rescue team tried again. This time the casket turned over and crews were able to pry the lid off.
McLeod noted that he couldn’t smell a body, and his team scooped mud away. They found particle board and a plastic bucket that likely been used to make the local family’s bar.
“This is good,” McLeod said. “We didn’t want it to be somebody.”
The casket was left in the creek, but the plastic bucket, likely used for bar ice, was taken to shore. Deputy Coroner Sarah Hockett planned to bring it home and show her boys, who had been wondering what she would find in the water-logged casket.
