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Centralia Police Chief Andy Caldwell has added another name to the list of public officials and citizens who claim fired police Sgt. Tracy Murphy, a candidate for sheriff, spoke about Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza’s possible involvement in drug trafficking.
The latest addition is former sheriff candidate and current Chehalis Police Department Deputy Chief Matt McKnight.
Murphy was fired last April after Caldwell concluded he’d made false statements while omitting material information during an internal investigation.
Background
The investigation stemmed from an anonymous complaint submitted to the Washington state Criminal Justice Training Commission (CJTC) in January. The complainant alleged Murphy had made “repeated statements” claiming Snaza acquires and protects drug dealers, who then distribute cocaine to prominent area Republicans.
At the time, Murphy led the now-defunct Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET) — which was composed of both Chehalis and Centralia police, state Department of Corrections staff and federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) members.
The complainant, who months later hasn’t been identified, believed Murphy was spreading the unverified information to possibly “gain leverage” in his campaign to become sheriff after losing to Snaza in the 2022 general election.
Murphy finished second in the August 2026 primary election behind Lewis County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) Special Services Chief Gabriel Frase. The two will face off in the Nov. 3 general election.
Though the private investigator hired by the Centralia Police Department determined he could not sustain the allegations against Murphy, he did take issue with Murphy’s “categorical denial” that he made statements suggesting Snaza protected drug dealers.
The denial contradicted several witnesses within the department, who reported having discussions with Murphy about associates of Snaza possibly being involved in drug activity, as well as discussions about Snaza either protecting or choosing a policy of “non-enforcement” against drug dealers.
Murphy later cited a non-disclosure agreement he’d signed with the DEA prohibiting him from disclosing information without authorization. Murphy told The Chronicle after his firing that the information he’d initially withheld pertained to a federal investigation, not a JNET investigation.
Several people and public officials have come forward in the months since Murphy’s firing to allege that Murphy — or his spouse — had accused Snaza of protecting drug dealers. Those include Port of Centralia Commissioner Ally Pickard, Lewis County Clerk Scott Tinney, Lewis County Republican Party Chair Greg Rohr, Toledo resident Kyle Wheeler and Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope.
A potential impeachment disclosure (PID) was issued by Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer in May.
A PID, known informally as a Brady letter, is used to disclose to a criminal defendant information about a government witness that may be exculpatory or impeaching. Brady lists also serve as an unofficial record of those found to have engaged in misconduct.
Meyer has since endorsed Frase in the sheriff’s race.
McKnight’s statement follows others
Caldwell has cataloged the reports in memorandums added to Murphy's administrative investigation file. Murphy has denied making the allegations to Tinney or Swope, according to previous reporting by The Chronicle.
The former sergeant is scheduled for an arbitration hearing — after the general election in November — between his union representatives at Teamsters Local 252 and the City of Centralia to contest his firing.
“I know that the union wouldn’t be spending as much money as they’re spending to defend me and get my job back if they even thought that I was in the wrong,” Murphy said in a video posted to his campaign’s Facebook page on Sept. 17. “So, we know the truth, and we know that it will come out.”
McKnight’s statement to Caldwell, which was posted on Facebook by Swope on Thursday night, was sent via email Friday, Oct. 9.
The following is McKnight’s full emailed statement, which incorrectly noted the year as 2020 rather than when Murphy last ran for sheriff in 2022: “You had asked me if Tracy Murphy ever shared with me his suspicions regarding possible drug trafficking in Lewis County involving Sheriff Snaza and others. The following is an account of my personal recollection of that conversation. During the 2020 election cycle, Tracy and his wife came to my house at my request. It was early in the election cycle, and I wanted to know Tracy's stance on several issues. Tracy and his wife came and met with me in the living room of my home.
“The conversation that followed lasted a few hours. During that conversation, Tracy explained that he believed Sheriff Snaza was actively protecting drug dealers. He said there was a trucking company, I do not remember if he provided me with the name, that brings cocaine to Lewis County and that the company was close friends with Sheriff Snaza. He did not seem clear on whether the Sheriff was actively involved or simply looking the other way. At the time, I was a recently promoted Deputy Chief with Chehalis, and the information Tracy provided was shocking, to say the least. He left me with the impression that his claims were being actively investigated, and I kept the conversation confidential due to the possibility that there was an active case.
“After Tracy was terminated, I reviewed the documents that had been made publicly available. I was confused by some of his statements about not sharing his suspicions about Sheriff Snaza with anyone outside of JNET or the Centralia Police Department command. However, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he believed I was an administrator with Chehalis and, therefore, able to know the information he had shared. Over the last year and while off-duty, I was approached by several people who questioned whether Tracy had been sharing information about Sheriff Snaza possibly being involved in narcotics trafficking. This was likely due to several community members coming forward and saying they had been told by Tracy or a member of the Murphy family about the theory. During the June 13 Republican Party Sheriff Candidate Forum, I asked Tracy directly about people coming forward. Tracy said he did not tell anyone and that he didn't ‘even share anything with my wife because it's protected information.’
"I know that to be factually incorrect. Tracy had told me about it in my living room, in front of his wife. Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.”
Swope releases McKnight statement
When contacted by The Chronicle Friday, Swope explained his reasoning for requesting the public documents and posting them on Facebook.
He said he did it because “people keep calling me a liar for telling the truth.”
“Someone asked me if Tracy Murphy ever told me Sheriff Snaza was protecting drug dealers,” Swope wrote in an emailed statement. “I said yes, because he did. That was during the 2022 race. After I answered honestly, the Murphy campaign went after me and several others who said basically the same thing. Now here’s a sitting Deputy Chief saying he had the same kind of conversation with Tracy and his wife back in 2022. McKnight says Murphy told him Snaza was protecting dealers connected to a trucking company running cocaine into the county. Later, at a candidate forum, Murphy claimed he never told anyone — not even his wife. McKnight says that’s not true. He was there. This matters. McKnight is an active Deputy Chief. If he made this up, he’d be looking at the same kind of Brady problem Murphy got. He knows the risk. That’s why I released it.”
Swope, who supported Snaza’s campaign in 2022, said he was an early supporter of Murphy in the current election cycle and that he even donated to his 2026 campaign and placed campaign signs on a family member’s property. The signs have since been removed.
“I was going to support him and eventually endorse him,” Swope said in a followup interview.
He said that changed when Pickard, the Port of Centralia commissioner, published her private Facebook Messenger conversations with Tracy Murphy’s spouse. In the messages, Swope said Murphy’s spouse spoke disparagingly about many local residents, including him and his family.
Now, he said he plans to vote for Frase, though he has stopped short of issuing an official endorsement.
Snaza speaks
Snaza remained publicly quiet about the issue until an interview with The Chronicle last week.
Snaza said he’d been aware of rumors that the sheriff’s office allows drug activity to occur in the county since the last election cycle.
“It's not that we're not doing anything,” Snaza said. “It's just the resources that we have. We do what we can to go after those individuals. So, the one thing that really upset me was because I spent my career going after those individuals involved in drug activity my whole life.”
Snaza described being a young Napavine officer working for the county’s ProAct Unit, and then later supervising the Unified Narcotics Enforcement Team (UNET), a precursor to JNET.
“I spent a career going after those people who do evil with drugs and getting people addicted to drugs and going after drugs,” Snaza said. “So when I hear that … it challenges me because people who know me know that's not true.”
Snaza also spoke to the now-infamous sticky notes posted on Murphy’s cubicle wall. The notes, which were first released redacted and then later unredacted in subsequent records requests, revealed a list of names and identifying information.
Each note labeled the individual’s possible connection to illegal drug activity, with titles such as drug user, transporter, supplier and money launderer.
A sticky note with Snaza’s name was placed at the top.
“They have their name, their date of birth … and some of those people I know personally, and some of those people were supporters of mine,” Snaza said. “Other people that were named on that are people I don't know personally, but I know there's law enforcement officers on that list — prior and current officers. I know that there's ex-wives of individuals, ex-girlfriends of individuals, all these things.
“And you don't say things like supplier, money launderer, user, distributor, and then my name's at the top, and not say or not believe that I'm involved in criminal drug activity.”
In a video posted to his campaign’s Facebook page on Oct. 4, Murphy said the sticky notes were “generated from a DEA complaint that came in in 2025.”
“The sticky notes are solely just investigative notes for the onset of an investigation,” Murphy said. “... The names that are on there don’t necessarily mean that they’re part of nefarious activities or that they’re even being looked at as a suspect in anything, and that includes Sheriff Snaza. Two people were named in the original complaint. These are just associates.”
Murphy said the individuals were identified through police reports with the Centralia Police Department, Chehalis Police Department, the LCSO and “other reports in the DEA system.”
In the video, Murphy said he never investigated Snaza, and as far as he knows, neither has JNET, the Centralia Police Department or the DEA.
In last week’s interview, Snaza disputed Murphy’s characterization of the sticky notes, calling it simply an “org chart.”
“I've been around as long as Mr. Murphy and a little bit longer,” Snaza said. “That is an org chart. Now you can deny that … But when you have their name, their date of birth, what you suspect them to be doing, and phone numbers, that's kind of an org chart, and I guarantee you, you don't put something like that together and just say, ‘You know, we're just looking.’”
Snaza said he was frustrated Murphy used federal agents, state agents and Centralia detectives to “investigate or summarize” that he and the named individuals were involved in cocaine delivery or distribution.
“And that is so false,” Snaza said, adding he believes the investigation was "malicious."
“And I honestly think that he did it for his own purposes,” Snaza said. “And if he was doing it for the betterment of the community and everything, then he should have told his command team. He should have told his chief what was going on, and his chief would have taken over the investigation and probably handed it out.”
Read the article focused on the interview with Snaza here: https://tinyurl.com/7f8x6d3u
The article includes a significant amount of previous reporting from Chronicle reporter Jacob Farmer.
