The latest election forum hosted by The Chronicle featured a few unexpected special guests, and among them was the brother of Aron Christensen, who was shot and killed by a young Tenino man in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in August 2022.
Corey Christensen made an appearance at the political forum and candidate meet-and-greet hosted by The Chronicle on Monday evening at Christ the King Academy inside the R.E. Bennett building in Chehalis.
Supported on either side by his father-in-law and a photo of his deceased brother, Corey chimed in throughout the Monday event, questioning the flawed investigation and lack of any criminal prosecution following his brother’s death on a hiking trail near Walupt Lake.
His thoughts came to a head during the final debate of the evening between the two candidates for Lewis County sheriff, Tracy Murphy and Gabriel Frase.
Corey also leveled questions at Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod and Lewis County Commissioner Scott Brummer.
All of them boiled down to one big question: How will you make sure this doesn’t happen again?
“What can you do to ensure Lewis County citizens that they don’t experience what I’ve experienced over the last four years?” Corey asked McLeod.
Facing Brummer, he asked specifically about oversight over the sheriff and prosecutor and funding better training for police officers. Speaking with the sheriff candidates, he asked how they would address the incompetence and errors that marred the investigation of his brother's death roughly four years ago.
Corey’s brother, Aron, was shot in the chest and killed in August 2022.
The first arriving Lewis County deputy reported Aron possibly died of a heart attack. Aron’s body, and that of his puppy, which was also shot and killed, were loaded onto a tarp and carried away, destroying the crime scene. Meanwhile, for reasons that still have not been fully explained, detectives were called off on their way to the scene.
The case has been the subject of deep criticism of the local criminal justice system. Despite an admission from then-19-year-old hiker Ethan Asbach, Lewis County has never filed charges related to the incident.
Lewis County Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Meyer has multiple times over the years confirmed his office would not press any charges, citing a lack of evidence and the failure of the Lewis County Sheriff's Office to preserve the crime scene and additional evidence.
Meyer was the subject of brief but blistering criticism from Corey despite not being present.
“Jonathan Meyer told me that if I wanted change, I could vote,” Corey said, pausing. “I don’t live here. That was back during all of this, and it was awful and gut wrenching and like a slap to the face.”
Reporting since the case has revealed the responding sheriff’s deputy disturbed the crime scene by moving Aron’s body and called off a detective and coroner deputy who were en route. Some, including Corey on Monday night, have even alleged the missteps might be linked to personal connections between the sheriff’s office and the Ausbach family, though no such connections have been proven.
Both sheriff candidates said they would be open to reinvestigating Aron's death in response to Corey’s question and others from both The Chronicle and the audience.
Frase recognized Aron’s death as a tragedy and was openly critical and contrite about his office’s failings, even mentioning he has his own “theories” as to why detectives were called off of the investigation, but saying he wouldn’t expand further. He added, “I’ve been told by certain individuals that I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Otherwise, his response was measured and he was careful not to over-promise, being clear that the opportunity to properly investigate the crime and interrogate the scene had passed as soon as Scrivner had moved Aron’s body.
“I would speak with people and determine areas that we could look into and see if there were areas where it could re-investigate because, like I said before, there are certain things, such as the incident up on Walupt Lake, where you cannot recreate the scene,” Frase said.
And while Frase was open to reinvestigating and appeared to want to speak more with the Christensen family, his focus was on how to “move forward,” assuring Corey and the audience that the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office had learned from its mistakes.
Murphy was quicker to diagnose the problem, asserting that the root problem with the case was poor training and leadership from the sheriff’s office.
“Basic academy training is you treat every death as a homicide until it's not a homicide,” Murphy said. “So every officer, every deputy that goes to the law enforcement academy, gets this basic training … At some point, the culture has shifted at the sheriff's office where they’re not doing the basic investigation anymore.”
Murphy added that a superior or mentor should have been at the scene of Aron’s death and connected that to a need for more staffing and a focus on mentorship in the sheriff’s office, which has been a major talking point for Murphy throughout his campaign.
Murphy also noted that Frase, as the current special services chief for the sheriff’s office, could begin reviewing the case immediately, while he would have to wait until taking office in January 2027.
Better training was also a request that Corey said he and his family have made of the Lewis County government as a whole since the case.
Corey touched on that subject briefly during Brummer’s time on stage, and while Brummer appeared sincere in his apology to Christensen for the loss of his brother, he did not entertain any suggestion that he or the board of commissioners could have done anything to change the outcome of the case.
Brummer highlighted his lack of authority over other elected positions such as the coroner and sheriff and added that the county’s budget did not allow for investments into more through training in the sheriff’s office.
Corey similarly asked a single question of the coroner’s office, asserting it had “bungled” its investigation and asking how the office would prevent such issues in the future.
The Christensen family at one time filed a lawsuit alleging investigators had tampered with Aron’s dog’s body and it appears to still be unclear whether the dog died from a gunshot wound and, if so, how many.
McLeod reiterated to Corey his office’s finding that Aron died from a gunshot wound, stating that the Lewis County Coroner’s Office was “transparent throughout.”
He expanded that he believed the coroner’s office fulfilled its mission of determining the cause of death and noted he was not involved in the other aspects of the case. He added that originally determining the cause of death took longer than expected after a forensic pathologist discovered signs of a heart attack and had to wait on the results of a forensic test to make the final determination that Aron was alive when he was shot.
“From day one, the next day, Aron was X-rayed and it was determined that there was a projectile in Aron’s body,” McLeod said. “And our pathologist determined that the cause of death was a gunshot wound, not a heart attack, and determined that the manner of death was a homicide.”
While he quizzed candidates, Corey was positive with candidates at times, briefly acknowledging McLeod for being the only local official to call him and speak on the phone even if it was “many months” later. He added that he has in the past had a sitdown conversation with Murphy with his attorney present for roughly an hour.
He also said he may be open to speaking with Frase under the right circumstances.
“I’m still happy to maybe meet with you,” Corey said. “Depends. Maybe if there was a reporter or a camera rolling.”
It's also clear that the Christensen family is still actively seeking answers to Aron’s case after the family, through legal representation, recently filed a complaint through the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission requesting an investigation into Aron’s death.
The “bungled” case, which has haunted the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office for the last four years, will not be going away anytime soon, even as the man leading the office currently will.
Sheriff Rob Snaza has announced his plans for retirement. Depending on the outcome of Nov. 3 general election, the next sheriff will be either Murphy or Frase.
