SEQUIM — When accused double-murderer Patrick B. Drum of Sequim spoke to his stepmother Friday and Saturday, he gave no explicit indication he was allegedly planning to kill two convicted sex offenders later that weekend, she said Tuesday.
But when Suzanne Drum, 57, thought about the phone calls, she said the fact that Patrick emphasized twice in two days how much he loved her gave her pause.
“He said, ‘I wanted you to know I really love you,’ and I said, ‘I really love you, too,’” she recalled in telephone interview from her Arizona home, adding that she had raised Drum since he was 3.
“I should have been suspicious,” Suzanne Drum said.
“I’ve been crying for two days.”
She also said her stepson, who writes poetry, said he would send her copyrights to his poems.
“I didn’t understand why he was doing that,” she said.
After an extensive, helicopter-aided manhunt Sunday, Patrick Drum, a 34-year-old convicted felon, was arrested in the Agnew area for investigation of two murders and burglary in connection with the deaths of convicted sex offenders Gary L. Blanton Jr., 28, of Sequim and Jerry W. Ray, 56, of Port Angeles.
Blanton and Ray each were shot multiple times, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office said.
Patrick Drum, whom authorities said admitted to the murders, will be charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and one count each of first-degree burglary and unlawful first-degree possession of a firearm in Clallam County Superior Court at 1 p.m. today, county Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said Tuesday.
Drum had intended to continue targeting and killing convicted sex offenders “as long as he could until he was stopped by law enforcement,” Kelly said Monday at Drum’s first Superior Court appearance.
Drum told authorities he shot Blanton and Ray “because they were sex offenders” and was heading to Jefferson County to shoot another as-yet-unidentified convicted sex offender when he was arrested, according to the county Sheriff’s Office’s probable-cause statement.
He was enrolled in addiction studies for the spring quarter at Peninsula College, spokesman Phyllis van Holland said Tuesday, adding that he also had enrolled in Peninsula College for the summer quarter of 1994 and spring quarter of 2003.
Suzanne Drum said there appears to be two sides to her stepson, one of which she was completely unaware.
She said her stepson had kept to himself about his personal life but “had turned his life around” in recent years.
“I never even thought he was capable of doing” what he is accused of doing, she said.
Authorities said they have linked the 9 mm handgun that was in Patrick Drum’s possession when he was arrested to the murders.
Blanton, convicted in 2001 of third-degree child rape, was found dead at the 5011 Sequim-Dungeness Way residence Blanton and Patrick Drum had been renting.
Blanton was found dead Sunday while authorities were searching the Agnew area for Drum, who was arrested for investigation of murder at 2:30 p.m. that afternoon.
Blanton’s sister-in-law, Tiffany Austin, 29, of Port Angeles, said Tuesday the rape charge against Blanton grew out of a relationship Blanton had with a teenager when he and the teenager were both in high school.
Blanton pleaded guilty to third-degree rape as part of a plea bargain, Austin said.
He later served five years for attempted first-degree kidnapping and was released in April 2010, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Authorities said Monday that Blanton and Drum were roommates, but Austin said Blanton had moved into the Sequim-Dungeness Way residence less than a week earlier and Drum was in the process of moving out.
“They had known each other for some time,” Austin said.
Jerry Ray, convicted in 2002 of first-degree rape of a child, was found dead by his father, Paul Ray, at their 31 Heuhslein Road home east of Port Angeles at about 7:40 a.m. Sunday.
Jerry Ray, who did not serve prison time on the charges, was under state supervision and was classified as a moderate-risk-level offender, the state Department of Corrections said.
Jerry Ray was on disability, his father said Tuesday.
Jerry Ray’s wife, Robin, was being treated at St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham when her husband was murdered, Paul Ray said.
Ray did not know of a connection between his son and Patrick Drum.
“I never heard of him until now,” Ray said.
Suzanne Drum said she did not know where Patrick Drum’s alleged anger toward sex offenders came from.
“To my knowledge, he has never been sexually assaulted,” she said.
She had married Drum’s late father, Tommy Ray Drum, in California when Patrick Drum was 3, she said.
The family — Drum had two older brothers — moved to Port Angeles in the early 1990s. Drum was born in Astoria, Ore., she said.
She said Drum was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder at a young age.
Drum, whose relationship with his father eventually turned violent, ran away from home when he was 14 and earned a General Educational Development — or GED — certificate, Suzanne Drum said.
Patrick Drum was in and out of jail and prison between July 1998 to March 2009 for charges generated in Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties that included residential burglary, second-degree burglary, tampering with a witness, drug possession, possession of stolen property and unlawful issuance of checks, according to the state Department of Corrections.
“He said he was done with all that past stuff,” Suzanne Drum said.
“He didn’t act like he had this in his head.”
Drum had been employed at Nash’s organic produce farm until late last year and currently was drawing unemployment, Suzanne Drum said.
Nash’s manager Kia Armstrong would not comment Tuesday on the circumstances of Drum’s departure.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
