The alleged killer of a Clark County woman is in custody and the dead woman’s husband is suspected of orchestrating the killing, sheriff’s investigators said Monday.
The fatal shooting of Lindy Rummell, 60, inside her Bush Prairie home was “staged” to look like an interrupted burglary, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Investigators said in the statement that her husband, James L. Rummell, 49, picked up his friend Darrell E. Riley, 55, of Eugene and took him to Clark County hours before the shooting.
Riley was arrested Sunday in Eugene and is being held on a warrant charging him with first-degree murder, while James Rummell was booked into the Clark County Jail on a single count of making false statements to a public servant, records show.
Clark County investigators said additional charges are possible as James Rummell is “considered a suspect in the murder.”
Deputies found Lindy Rummell dead about 7 p.m. Saturday in the couple’s rural home off Northeast 119th Street near 182nd Avenue.
James Rummell told deputies he had returned home and discovered his wife dead and their Ford F-150 missing, according to the sheriff’s office. Investigators put out an all-points bulletin looking for the truck.
The burnt-out remains of the truck were found in Benton County. The fire was likely set to destroy evidence of the killing, Clark County investigators said.
James Rummell had no significant criminal record in Washington, records show. He was convicted of first-degree theft and second-degree kidnapping in Clatsop County in Oregon in 2000 and sentenced to five years and 10 months in state prison, records show.
Riley had been arrested nearly 20 times since the late 1980s in Lane County, records show, including for second-degree assault, first-degree theft, unlawful use of a vehicle and first-degree burglary. He was most recently sentenced to 31 days in jail in 2021 for attempting to elude a Springfield police officer during a traffic stop. Officers found methamphetamine in his pocket during the incident, according to an affidavit.
Riley will remain in custody pending extradition to Washington, authorities said.
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