BLYN — A little after 9 p.m. on the night of Sept. 20, cashier David Anderson noticed that a customer at the Longhouse Market & Deli resembled the face on a wanted poster just brought into the store.
The flier showed Shawn Matthew Roe, who police were seeking in a manhunt prompted by the killing of U.S. Forest Service Officer Kristine Fairbanks, 51, earlier that day.
“Mr. Anderson recognized him,” Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said on Wednesday as he presented the Longhouse staff member with a Clallam County Citizen Commendation award.
In a ceremony at 7 Cedars Casino, which like the Longhouse is owned by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, Benedict also gave commendation plaques to four other workers who helped alert police to Roe’s arrival.
Roe, 36, was shot and killed by Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies as he left the Longhouse.
Later, investigators discovered that Roe was driving a pickup belonging to Sequim retiree Richard Ziegler.
They found Ziegler, 59, dead of a gunshot wound on Jonrey Lane —on land where he was building a home— near the campground where Fairbanks’s body was found, and said Roe had killed him for the truck after he killed Fairbanks, a 22-year veteran of the National Forest Service.
Benedict said that when Anderson saw Roe, he told Longhouse cashier Libby Sweetser, who immediately called 9-1-1.
Sweetser, her face solemn, accepted the sheriff’s commendation along with Anderson, security guards Glenn Davidson and Allan Napiontek and Longhouse crew supervisor Michael Swisher.
The five workers helped stop a man “bent on further homicidal violence,” Benedict said.
The sheriff has said that Roe, whose last known address was Everett, probably was on his way to kill his former wife, Mary Catherine White, and “go out in a blaze of glory, shooting law enforcement officers” at her house in Shelton.
By recognizing Roe, staying calm and calling police, the Longhouse workers “were directly responsible for his swift apprehension.”
The sheriff added that the award recipients had acted not only with bravery, but also with an awareness of their roles as community members.
“You probably saved a lot of lives,” Benedict told the workers.
As they received their awards, the guards’ and cashiers’ eyes were downcast, as though they were remembering the day Roe destroyed the peace that had pervaded the woods of Blyn.
On the night of Sept. 20, two State Patrol troopers had brought fliers bearing Roe’s photograph to the Longhouse.
Fairbanks’ body had been found at the Dungeness Forks Campground.
Law enforcement from across the North Olympic Peninsula, including the State Patrol, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department and the Sequim Police Department, were seeking her killer.
Moments after the troopers left the Longhouse, Roe walked in.
He joked casually with the cashiers, until he spotted the fliers.
As he headed out the door, Roe brandished a handgun, Benedict said.
When he stepped outside he faced two Clallam County deputies, and was shot and killed.
“It was a tragedy,” Benedict said. “But it ended the violence.”
The sheriff presented medals of valor to deputies Matthew Murphy and Andrew Wagner in an Oct. 21 ceremony at the Clallam County Courthouse.
Jerry Allen, CEO of the 7 Cedars Casino, said his employees were affected not only by the shooting outside the market, but also by the fact that they, like many people across the Peninsula, knew and admired Fairbanks, who had patrolled the Olympic National Forest for some 15 years.
She and her husband, Brian Fairbanks, a Fish and Wildlife officer, had lived with their daughter, Whitney, in Forks.
Fairbanks also was survived by her father, John Willits of Port Angeles.
A memorial service for Fairbanks in Port Angeles drew thousands.
Ziegler’s family took his remains back to California.
“We did go through some counseling,” with workers who wanted it, Allen said.
“This has affected our family,” he said, extending a hand toward the five workers, “like it has affected so many families.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailyews.com
