Thursday, January 14, 2010

Maple Valley police officer hit by car while responding to fake kidnapping call

By DENNIS BOX
COVINGTON REPORTER

A Maple Valley police officer was hit by a car at about 5 p.m. Tuesday during the investigation of an apparent kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, which turned out to be a hoax.

The 22-year-old officer was transported to Harborview Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. He was released later that night.

According to an e-mail from Sgt. John Urquhart, spokesman for the King County Sheriff's Office, the incident began because the boy had received an "F in math."

Urquhart wrote the boy ran away from home because his parents were "getting on him over grades."

After running away, the boy made up the kidnapping story.

The officer was on the scene in the 18600 block of Maple Valley Highway for the kidnapping report when he was struck by a 2008 Ford Taurus driven by a 47-year-old Issaquah man. The driver was not injured and has not been cited for an infraction.

Urquhart added King County detectives interviewed the boy extensively and his story began to make less and less sense.

At about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday the boy confessed to his parents and they called the sheriff's office.

According to the sheriff's office the officer struck by the car is very sore today and will require some follow-up treatment.

He has been with the King County Sheriff's Office for two years.

This article was originally published in the Covington Reporter on January 13, 2010.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Attempted murder suspect arrested in Arizona

By NAT LEVY
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND REVIEW

After six weeks on the run from federal and local law enforcement, attempted murder suspect Edward Mark Olsen turned himself in in Arizona Friday evening.

Bainbridge police searched for the suspect following an incident on Nov. 29 when Olsen, recently paroled from a California prison, allegedly broke into the home of his ex-girlfriend, doused her and their 12-year-old son with lighter fluid and threatened to set them on fire.

A police press release said local officials have worked with the FBI and U.S. Marshals since the incident to track the suspect. Evidence placed him in Florida, Nevada and California before Olsen, 49, called police in Chandler, Ariz. Olsen informed the police that he had several felony warrants for his arrest and wished to turn himself in.

Olsen submitted to police without incident. He is being held on charges of attempted murder, burglary and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

This article was originally published in the Bainbridge Island Review on January 9, 2010.
Nat Levy can be reached at nlevy@bainbridgereview.com.

Neighbors shocked by murder-for-hire plot

KOMO-TV STAFF

This Pierce County community is in shock after learning that a Boeing employee has been accused of hiring a hit man to kill his wife.

The man who claims he was hired to kill the wife turned to police - who stopped the alleged plot.

But stunned neighbors are still reeling, and news of the unusual crime has some in utter disbelief.

"It's like, 'What the heck is going on around here?' I don't know," says one neighbor, Tanya Wooten.

Says another neighbor, who asked not to be identified: "I'm amazed and bewildered. I mean, we just would have never expected that. They seem like very nice people."

The "nice people," who live on a quiet gravel street in Bonney Lake are now at the center of a murder-for-hire plot.

Police say the husband, Daniel Fiscus, paid a would-be hit man $5,000 to kill his wife - and then make it look like an accident.

"That close to home, it concerns me," says one neighbor. "I mean, I had no idea. He never came off as that type of person."

Police allege that Fiscus wanted to collect on his wife's insurance policy. But Fiscus has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

And his wife says she was "living in constant fear" that her "aggressive and hostile" husband might harm her in divorce papers filed in mid-November.

One month later, investigators say, Fiscus sought out a hit man and paid him, and that man came forward to police.

"I mean, that's pretty serious accusations that are made against him. That's pretty scary stuff," says one neighbor.

Daniel Fiscus is currently being held in the Pierce County jail on $5 million bail.

His wife reportedly went to an undisclosed location after the couple separated. She told the courts it was because she feared for her life.

Fiscus has no prior criminal history.