A member of the Washington Department of Ecology's Emergency Response Spill Team sorts through chemicals found in an alleged methamphetamine production facility on Joppish Road in Galvin on Tuesday afternoon.
A witness who led police to an operational methamphetamine lab in Galvin earlier this week was arrested Wednesday on outstanding warrants and new a drug charge.
Heather R. Peterson, 39, of Centralia, was charged Thursday in Lewis County Superior Court on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine. The charge was not related to the meth production operation, prosecutors said.
Peterson was also booked for an outstanding warrant from Idaho and is facing extradition to that state.
She is being held in the Lewis County Jail on $15,000 bail.
Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead asked for the bail amount partly because he said an investigation revealed she was potentially planning on fleeing the jurisdiction for Idaho.
Attorney Rachael Tiller, representing Peterson at her first hearing, denied that her client was trying to flee, and said she simply had business to attend to in Idaho, where she has family.
According to court documents and the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, a deputy from the Sheriff’s Office responded at 10 p.m Wednesday to the 100 block of Joppish Road in Galvin after receiving a report of a suspicious person in the area, the same location as the meth lab discovered earlier in the week.
The deputy learned that Peterson was there, and discovered that she had active felony warrants.
During her arrest on the warrants, Peterson reportedly revealed two bags of a substance identified as methamphetamine in her pockets. She was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail.
Two days earlier, deputies responded to the same address to a report of an assault against Peterson by Justin G. Bonifield, 47, who lived at the same address on Joppish Road. Peterson reported Bonifield struck her in the head with an empty beer bottle and fired a gun as she tried to escape.
While deputies were searching for Bonifield, Peterson revealed that he was making methamphetamine in a shed on the property.
Bonifield is being held on $200,000 bail for charges of manufacturing methamphetamine, second-degree assault, harassment — threat to kill, domestic violence, second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, second-degree possession of stolen property and possession of methamphetamine.
Investigators reported finding “fully functional methamphetamine lab as well as a crystal substance that tested positive for methamphetamine,” according to court documents. The “lab” contained beakers, tubes, chemicals, flasks, a condenser, powder that tested positive for ephedrine and red phosphorous, a chemical used to make methamphetamine.
On Tuesday, detectives and responders from the state Department of Ecology were still at the scene. Bonifield was arrested Tuesday at a residence in Olympia and was charged in Lewis County Superior Court Wednesday afternoon.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday morning. His trial is tentatively set for mid-May.
