The names and details of criminal actions often blur together in court records compiled regularly by The Chronicle.
Now and again, a familiar name will stand out from the rest, harkening my mind back to a notable crime or interaction with the individual facing punishment.
Such was the case with Gordon Powell Jr., a man who has made occasional appearances in this newspaper over the years for less than flattering reasons.
Mostly, the man’s crimes consisted of petty theft, trespassing and burglary charges.
Powell never stood out.
There are hundreds of people among us who struggle with homelessness and substance abuse, or some combination of the two afflictions.
His relative notoriety came last year, though, when surveillance footage showed him bumbling through a burglary of the Blind Pig Distillery on North Tower Avenue in Centralia.
Police reports described Powell as being passed out and surrounded by empty bottles shortly after the theft.
Property crime is certainly no laughing matter, but I found trace amounts of humor in Powell’s absolute failure to attempt to conceal his crime before indulging in the spoils of theft.
He was sentenced for the crime, and others, and was set to spend 60 months in the Monroe Correctional Center.
It’s definitely not funny anymore.
Powell was recently murdered by a fellow inmate, effectively rendering his punishment an indirect life sentence.
“I hit him because I knew he was Satan,” Benjamin C. Price allegedly told a corrections lieutenant after beating Powell May 9.
The Lewis County man succumbed to his injuries on Monday.
Like many who become frequent guests of the state prison system, Price’s criminal history is highlighted by acute mental illness punctuated by frequent acts of violence.
There had been indicators he was reaching a dangerous breaking point.
According to The Daily Herald of Everett, he went as far as telling guards he would kill someone if that’s what it took to gain an audience with police.
Unfortunately, those were not idle threats.
He had also attempted to murder a cellmate while being held at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Grays Harbor County in 2011.
After trying to strangle the man, he told staff, “I had a dream that the devil would be my new cellie this morning. I was told the only way I could stop the devil from hurting my daughter and me was to kill him.”
Powell wasn’t the first person he killed, though. He strangled his girlfriend, Dawn Ruger, 44, in 2006, claiming she was putting demons in his head. He went to Western State Hospital for evaluation and treatment before eventually being sentenced to 12 years in prison for manslaughter.
The details of Price’s mental instability are chilling, and I can only imagine the fear and pain suffered by Powell during and after the attack.
I didn’t know Powell, and my attempts to reach out to those who did were unsuccessful.
By extrapolating on the details of the distillery burglary and his criminal record, though, it’s likely he struggled with alcohol abuse.
That, in itself, is not necessarily a crime.
Many are only spared the consequences of such reliance because of a higher social standing or a more secure safety net.
Powell deserved an opportunity to correct his actions by serving his sentence to society.
Instead, a decision to steal $90 worth of alcohol set off a chain of events that would eventually swallow his very existence.
There’s no grand lesson to be learned here, aside from the fact that the walls and fences that protect us from criminals do not protect prisoners from one another.
It’s also a reminder of the value of programs such as Drug Court and the 24/7 Sobriety Program, initiatives aimed at breaking a criminal cycle that can often have unexpected — and even fatal — consequences.
It also brings the court records compiled by The Chronicle into better focus.
Many of the names belong to regular people who chose, or were set on, a bad path.
Before judging them based on their crimes, it’s important to remember we all struggle with our own demons.
Some are unfortunately more devilish than others.
Eric Schwartz is The Chronicle editor and a columnist.
