Michael Salazar makes an appearance in Lewis County Superior Court last year in Chehalis.
A guilty plea hearing for the third person accused of murder in the death of Randle teen Benjamin Eastman III in June 2018 has been rescheduled after new information was discovered, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told The Chronicle.
Michael Salazar, 18, of Kennewick was scheduled to enter a guilty plea Wednesday. However, the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office learned Salazar potentially had new information regarding charges of witness tampering filed against another suspect, Jerald Thompson, originally scheduled to go to trial next week.
Meyer said he couldn’t disclose the new information, but said Salazar could now be a witness in Thompson’s trial. In that event, prosecutors hope to sort out a plea agreement with Salazar before Thompson’s trial begins, Meyer said.
Salazar’s plea hearing is now scheduled for May 1.
Salazar was accused of preventing someone from reporting a plan to kill Eastman, in June of 2018 and was charged last year with first-degree murder or in the alternative second-degree murder, first degree rendering criminal assistance and tampering with physical evidence.
Thompson was supposed to go to trial on March 11. That trial date was stricken. He now has a trial confirmation scheduled for April 30.
***
Salazar was the third person charged with murder in Eastman’s death.
Brothers Jonathon Adamson and Benito Marquez are accused of, in June 2018, luring Eastman into the woods by telling him they wanted to go camping, brutally beating him to death, then burying him in a shallow grave. They later dug up his body and moved it when they were concerned about being caught.
Adamson pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder, first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping in Eastman’s death, and an additional two counts of witness tampering dating to February 2019. Marquez has also pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, first-degree rape, tampering with physical evidence and unlawful disposal of remains.
Thompson is Jonathon Adamson’s brother.
According to court documents, In June of 2019, Salazar admitted in an interview that he was aware of Adamson and Marquez’s plan to at least assault Eastman. He has been accused of physically preventing someone from notifying a third party about their plan as well as actively helping destroy evidence of the crime in an attempt to cover up the criminal acts, according to court documents.
Adamson and Marquez were scheduled to be sentenced on March 11, but according to Meyer, those dates will be changed.
Meyer also believes Adamson might attempt to withdraw his guilty plea, though it hasn’t happened yet.
The other suspects in the case include Emma Brown, Adamson’s fiance at the time of the homicide, who pleaded guilty to third-degree rendering criminal assistance and making a false statement to police and was sentenced to 90 days suspended and Kindra Adamson, Jonathon Adamson and Marquez’ mother, who pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree rendering criminal assistance.
Any sentencing hearing for all the suspects involved, with exception to Brown who was already sentenced, will also have to wait for Amanda Hagerty, the mother of Salazar who is charged with first-degree rendering criminal assistance and witness tampering, and was scheduled to have her trial begin in February but was moved back to early May.
Meyer said he wants to have sentencing hearings for all the people who were found guilty for their involvement in the killing of Eastman to be on the same date so that Eastman’s family will only need to speak once.
