Billy Bartlett was sentenced Friday to 429 months, or 35 and a half years, in prison for killing 46-year-old William Foster III and injuring a 12-year-old in Chehalis in December 2021.
“Nothing can bring Mr. Foster back. There’s nothing but tragedy here, all around, so if nothing else, this will keep the community safe for this period of time,” Judge James Lawler said at Bartlett’s sentencing hearing in Lewis County Superior Court on Friday.
Bartlett, 32, of Amanda Park, pleaded guilty Jan. 23 to one count each of second-degree murder, third-degree assault of a child with a deadly weapon, and first-degree burglary with a deadly weapon. He had been accused of breaking into a Chehalis apartment, stealing a knife, and using it to murder Foster on Dec. 20, 2021.
In a written plea submitted to Lewis County Superior Court, Bartlett admitted to breaking into an apartment in the 300 block of Southwest James Street in Chehalis and taking a knife.
“On that same day, I used the knife that I previously took to intentionally stab William Foster, causing his death. While in the process of stabbing Mr. Foster, his son … attempted to stop me and got cut in the process,” Bartlett stated in the guilty plea.
Foster’s son, Dillon, submitted written testimony that Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer read aloud to the full courtroom at Friday’s sentencing hearing.
In the statement, Dillon described how he, his then 4-year-old sister Lily and his dad were in a van at a gas pump when a man approached and asked his dad for a cigarette.
Foster gave the man a cigarette. The man then stabbed Foster, injuring Dillon when he tried to intervene and protect his sister.
Foster started driving the van away from the gas pump but was severely injured. The van ultimately came to rest outside the nearby Ocean Sky restaurant.
In his statement, Dillon described how he called 911 and, not knowing the restaurant’s address, went into the restaurant to get help.
A woman inside the restaurant helped him finish the 911 call. Officers were dispatched at 7:47 p.m., according to court documents.
Foster, Dillon and Lily were all transported to Providence Centralia Hospital when medical aid arrived, Dillon wrote, though he specified that Lily was not injured.
Foster, however, died at the hospital from his injuries.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod has since determined Foster’s cause of death to be internal bleeding due to multiple stab wounds and the manner of death as homicide.
Police later had Dillon identify whether Bartlett, who was arrested for trying to break into an apartment complex in the 100 block of Northeast Boistfort Street at about 8:40 p.m., was the man who had attacked him and his father.
“It was Bartlett,” Dillon wrote.
Concern about the effect testifying at trial would have on Dillon was Bartlett’s primary reason for pleading guilty, defense attorney Christopher Baum said Friday.
“During the whole process, he was very concerned about the effect on Dillon,” Baum said.
Though now on medication and receiving mental health treatment, Bartlett had severe, untreated mental health issues at the time of the murder, according to Baum.
“He didn’t know Mr. Foster, and unfortunately, he acted upon the voices he heard that Mr. Foster was a danger to his family,” Baum said.
Taking the opportunity to make a statement at his sentencing hearing, Bartlett apologized to his family and to Foster’s children.
“I have great remorse for putting them in this predicament,” he said of Dillon and Lily. “I’ve got mental health issues, I hear voices and sometimes I go through it, and I’m just asking for help.”
In this case, the standard sentencing range, which is calculated based off of the severity of the crimes and the defendant’s criminal offender score, is 297 to 397 months in prison for the murder charge, 33 to 43 months for the assault of a child charge, and 87 to 116 months for the burglary charge.
Each charge includes a deadly weapon enhancement, which adds 54 months total to the sentence.
State law prohibits judges from sentencing defendants above their standard sentencing ranges except in extreme circumstances.
While the prosecution asked for the maximum sentence and the defense asked for a sentence at the low end of the sentencing range, Lawler opted to sentence Bartlett slightly below the maximum.
Bartlett’s documented mental health issues and the fact that he pled guilty were factors in that decision, Lawler said.
“I do not take this as an attempt by Mr. Bartlett to say that he didn’t know what was happening or that there was some insanity here. That argument was made and it was not accepted. I do accept though that there are substantial mental health problems, but as Mr. Meyer pointed out, a lot of those are directly related to his drug use,” Lawler said Friday.
He added, “the bottom of the range is simply not appropriate … This murder happened right in front of Dillon. And the impact on Dillon and the family is extraordinary.”
Divided out, Lawler sentenced Bartlett to 375 months on the murder charge, 43 months on the assault, and 116 months on the burglary. Those sentences are to run concurrently, for a total of 375 months. Adding the 54 months of deadly weapon enhancements, which run consecutively to the jail sentence, brings the total sentence to 429 months.
The sentence includes mandatory drug, mental health and anger management treatment for Bartlett.
Lawler also approved a no-contact order preventing Bartlett from having any contact with Foster’s family.
