By Rob Ollikainen
For Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Dustin Iverson identified Monday a collection of weapons stolen from his family’s residence east of Port Angeles after his father, brother and brother’s girlfriend were murdered there in 2018.
Iverson was one of the final witnesses to testify in Dennis Marvin Bauer’s six-week triple-murder trial in Clallam County Superior Court.
Judge Lauren Erickson said she planned to dismiss the jury for the holidays after the prosecution rested its case and would schedule closing arguments for Jan. 3. The trial began Nov. 15.
Iverson identified for the jury seven firearms and other items taken from 52 Bear Meadow Road after the murders on Dec. 26, 2018.
Bauer, 53, is charged with three counts of first-degree aggravated murder for the shooting deaths of Darrell Iverson, 57, Jordan Iverson, 27, and Tiffany May, 26, and a host of weapons violations for the alleged robbery.
Investigators said Bauer and two accomplices shot the victims and took stolen property to Bauer’s compound at 2591 Lower Elwha Road.
“There were lots of guns missing,” said Dustin Iverson, who was Darrell Iverson’s son and Jordan Iverson’s brother.
“That’s the thirty-aught-six that I killed my first bear with,” Dustin Iverson said.
Dustin Iverson, an Army veteran of the Iraq War, was accompanied on the stand by his 2-year-old service dog, Mr. Ryker.
“That’s one of the guns that’s been in my family as long as I can remember,” Iverson said of a Mauser rifle found at Bauer’s ranch.
Iverson went on to identify his father’s SCCY pistol, a .45-caliber Llama pistol, a Ruger 10K/22 and a “six-shooter that my father held in high regards.”
Dustin Iverson said he was sure the weapons had not been sold.
“My father didn’t sell guns,” he said.
“He was an avid collector, and he refused to sell any guns at all.”
Dustin Iverson also identified multiple knives, tools, a jewelry box, a tattoo kit, bags of watches and his own Army combat uniform. All of the items were found at Bauer’s compound.
Dustin Iverson said he last saw his father and brother in 2016 before he moved to El Paso, Texas.
He said he was concerned about suspected drug use and “toxic” people at the home on Bear Meadow Road.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office said Bauer, Ryan Warren Ward, 40, and Kallie Ann LeTellier, 37, shot and killed the victims as part of a drug-fueled robbery.
Bauer and his alleged accomplices used methamphetamine with the Iversons, according to testimony. LeTellier said she had been raped by the Iversons about two weeks before the shootings and that Ward and Bauer were angry about the alleged sexual assault.
LeTellier is serving a 35-year prison term for May’s death. Ward was sentenced to life in prison.
Defense attorney Karen Unger has said Bauer was a bystander to the murders carried out by Ward and LeTellier.
In other testimony Monday, prosecutors played a recording of a telephone conversation that Bauer had with his son, Jared, while in jail on Feb. 16, 2019.
In the 58-second clip, Bauer said he expected the first-degree murder charges to be reduced.
“It should drop back down to second degree, because that’s not what we (inaudible),” Bauer said on the recording.
“I can’t talk about it, Jared.”
Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michele Devlin provided a transcript of the recording to the jury but would not provide a copy to the Peninsula Daily News.
Other recordings that Bauer made from jail were played for the jury earlier in the trial.
Testimony was delayed by more than an hour Monday because one of the jurors needed medical attention, Erickson said.
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Rob Ollikainen is a freelance reporter.
