PORT ANGELES — The five-day trial for a Port Townsend man who has been charged with second-degree murder will begin Jan. 26 at the Clallam County Courthouse.
Aaron C. Fisher, 37, has been charged with the murder of Richard G. Madeo, 70, after he allegedly punched him in the face last May, knocking Madeo unconscious near a fuel station in Sequim.
Madeo died two days later at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, according to court documents.
Fisher’s attorney, Lane Wolfley, said Jan. 9 he’s optimistic about starting the trial on time, but he’s having a difficult time interviewing some witnesses who refuse to be interviewed, and one of their main witnesses, a transient, has not been able to be contacted.
Clallam County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michele Devlin said they have not received confirmation that the witness had been subpoenaed to court. She questioned if Wolfley would be ready as he had allegedly not responded to her emails and had not supplied a witness list to the court.
Wolfley told Judge Brent Basden that he has a few things he must do and that they’ve “used every available means” to contact the unavailable witness.
“It’d be hard for us to go to trial without (them),” he said.
Basden said they would keep the Jan. 26 court date with pretrial motions set for 9 a.m. Wednesday.
On Jan. 8, Wolfley filed to suppress comments Fisher made to police about the incident as he allegedly didn’t have his Miranda rights read to him.
A second case in which Fisher allegedly communicated with a minor for immoral purposes continues to trail the murder case. He previously pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and one count each of possessing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the first and second degree.
Bank robbery
Meanwhile, a trial date for Dale Allen Jaff, 58, who is charged with robbing Sequim’s Kitsap Bank last April, will be reset in late January.
Basden agreed on Jan. 9 to strike a Jan. 26 start date for the eight-day trial at the request of Jaff’s defense attorney, Alex Stalker, who said he wouldn’t be ready as he had not heard back from an expert he intends to use in the case.
The trial reset hearing was set for 1 p.m. Jan. 30.
Clallam County deputy prosecuting attorney Steven Johnson also asked and received permission from Basden for DNA testing of a note Jaff allegedly gave to a bank teller during the incident.
Jaff, of Port Hadlock, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree robbery, second-degree theft and second-degree assault.
Former police officer
A former Sequim police officer’s attorney filed a motion on Jan. 9 to dismiss felony charges for rape and voyeurism charges.
Defense attorney Karen Unger’s motion follows discovery violations related to the case. Related documents were not available by press time.
Her client, Christian J. Whitaker, 28, faces felony charges for incidents that allegedly occurred in July 2024 in Jefferson County.
Chris Ashcraft, a special deputy prosecuting attorney, said Jan. 9 that he had received the motion to dismiss the night before and didn’t have time to review it.
Judge Simon Barnhart set a schedule that gives Ashcraft until Jan. 30 to respond to Unger’s motion and gives Unger until Feb. 18 to respond to Ashcraft. Another hearing was scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 24.
Whitaker’s four-day trial was previously set to begin on Jan. 12 in Clallam County Superior Court.
He was booked and released on Sept. 5 with no bond set.
A woman reportedly in a relationship with Whitaker told Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy Alan Jorgensen that she was drugged and sexually assaulted in Whitaker’s residence last July, according to court documents.
Whitaker worked for the Sequim Police Department from June 2022 until August 2025 and was immediately placed on administrative leave when the allegations were made, according to the city of Sequim.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
