Onalaska Homeowner Given Maximum Sentence of 63 Months for Fatally Shooting Trespasser

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    Ronald A. Brady was sentenced Wednesday to a maximum 63 months in prison by Judge Nelson Hunt for a second-degree manslaughter conviction for the April 2010 shooting death of 56-year-old Thomas S. McKenzie outside his Onalaska home. 

    Brady, 60, who was acquitted of murder charges, was found guilty of manslaughter June 24 by a jury in Lewis County Superior Court.

    Prosecutors requested the full sentencing range of just over five years — which includes three mandatory years of prison time because of a firearm-enhancement conviction — while arguing that Brady provoked the shooting instead of alerting law enforcement about a potential burglary.

    “He had no remorse for killing another human being here,” Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke said. “He went outside with a mission, and he accomplished that mission that night.”

    Judge Hunt agreed.

    “There were other things he could have done,” Hunt said.

    Brady was unemotional during the sentencing and declined to comment. After it was over, he walked to the jury box, waited for a bailiff to handcuff him, and was led out the rear of the courtroom to the jailhouse. 

    A group of nine of McKenzie’s family members quietly hugged and shook each other’s hands. Four of them had spoken in the courtroom before the judge delivered the sentencing.

    “My brother should not have been there, that’s a fact, but he didn’t deserve death,” Colleen Wolczak, of Salem, Ore., said. “Your hell begins the day you walk into that prison, Mr. Brady, but nothing brings my brother back.”

    McKenzie’s family said he leaves behind nine children, as well as grandchildren.

    Notably absent from the sentencing was Joanna McKenzie, Thomas McKenzie’s widow.

    Joanna McKenzie, 33, served 15 days in jail after entering a plea deal for attempted residential burglary of Brady’s home.

    Brady was acquitted of assaulting Joanna McKenzie by shooting at her.

    Evidence showed Brady had shot four or five times at the McKenzies. In testimony he said he shot at Thomas McKenzie three times.

    “He shot my brother down like an animal,” John McKenzie, of Morton, said.

    Without a firearm enhancement, the sentencing range for second-degree manslaughter is 21 to 27 months for a person without a felonious offender score.

    Defense attorney Don Blair said he would file an appeal of Brady’s conviction later Wednesday. The appeal could be heard in the state Court of Appeals in Tacoma.



    Brady shot McKenzie in the right side of his chest with a semiautomatic .22-caliber rifle while thwarting a nighttime burglary of his under-construction home at 2155 state Route 508. The bullet passed between McKenzie’s ribs, punctured his pulmonary artery, filling his lungs with blood, and exited between his ribs on the other side.

    McKenzie died moments later face down on Brady’s lawn while trying to flee before 10 p.m. April 19, 2010.

    After the shooting, Brady called 911 with a cellphone that was in his pocket. A sheriff’s deputy arrived three minutes later.

    That same deputy had been at Brady’s residence earlier that day for a report of a burglary. Brady, who lived in a rental about 400 yards away, had come home to his fixer-upper after playing bridge at a church in Centralia and found two broken windows and the garage door propped slightly ajar by a mini-sledgehammer lying on the ground.

    The deputy told Brady that it looked like his property had been “staged” — construction equipment was arranged in his garage for an easy pickup that night. The deputy told Brady he or another deputy would be close by that night and would stop by at least once to check on his property.

    When the deputy left, Brady had propped his garage door open again they way intruders had left. He then talked to a couple of neighbors and told at least one he planned on shooting intruders if they came back.

    He then armed himself with a loaded small-caliber rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with birdshot before sitting down in the rear of the house in the darkness and perusing the Internet.

    The McKenzies arrived sometime after 9:30 p.m. in a 1970s Ford truck. Brady said he saw their headlights in his driveway. He then moved through the thread-bare interior of his home and entered the garage, where he said during the trial that he began to call 911, but forgot to hit “send” on his phone and instead flipped up the door and began firing.

    Brady told investigators he was “flabbergasted” when McKenzie fell dead of a .22-caliber bullet: “I would not have thought it had that kind of stopping power.”

    Later Wednesday, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said “we’d probably be having a different discussion” about Brady’s conviction and sentencing if McKenzie had entered Brady’s residence before shots were fired.

    Brady had about nine supporters in court but none of them were family members.

    “I guess this is a good day for burglars and not so good for the rest of us,” Jack Tipping, Brady’s neighbor and landlord, said.  

    Thomas McKenzie’s father, Robert McKenzie, thanked prosecutors for Brady’s conviction and sentencing before leaving the courtroom. “You guys did a good job. He’s going where he belongs.”

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    Adam Pearson: (360) 807-8208 and twitter.com/ChronicleSirens