OSO — A missing Oso couple presumed dead were afraid of their former next-door neighbor, John Reed, court papers show.
Reed and his brother are suspected of killing Patrick Shunn and Monique Patenaude, whose whereabouts remained unknown Monday.
Search warrants made public Monday point to an ongoing property dispute as a possible motive in the couple’s disappearance.
Shunn, 45, and Patenaude, 46, said Reed had threatened to shoot and hurt them, and that he was squatting on the land he recently sold to Snohomish County.
The couple’s complaints in recent weeks led to Reed to being warned by the county to stay away from his former home and property or face sanctions for trespassing.
The neighbors lived along Whitman Road on the western edge of the Oso mudslide. Their properties were eligible for county buyouts related to the March 2014 disaster. Reed opted for a buyout. The missing couple declined. The buyout and other slide-related issues may have aggravated simmering property disputes between the two parties, according to the search warrants.
Efforts to find Shunn and Patenaude were ongoing in a wooded area near their home Monday afternoon. The same was true for the regional manhunt for Reed, 53, and his brother, Tony Clyde Reed, 49. John Blaine Reed reportedly visited his parents’ home in Ellensburg after the killings but has long since left.
Detectives already have served at least nine search warrants in connection with the case.
Both brothers are wanted for investigation of murder, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. John Reed reportedly had a key to the missing couple’s gated driveway, which leads to the adjacent property he used to own. He was last observed on the property on April 13, two days after anyone saw the couple alive. His brother was with him and they told another neighbor they were going to be moving items from the old house.
John Reed’s land was purchased by Snohomish County on March 31 as part of a series of voluntary buyouts for property affected by the mudslide. His property was at risk for future flooding, officials said. Even though he took the buyout money, Reed reportedly had continued to live at the home.
Patenaude had reported to officials a few weeks ago that Reed was squatting there.
Shunn in 2013 also had called 911 to report that John Reed was threatening him and his wife over a property dispute involving brush cutting, court papers show. Reed reportedly had warned Shunn he would “shoot or assault (Shunn and Patenaude) if they didn’t leave Reed alone.” At that time, the problems between them were described as “ongoing and constant.”
John Reed isn’t named in a lawsuit the couple filed in 2013 against two other neighbors, but Patenaude cited problems with him in her petition for an anti-harassment order against the named neighbors.
She claimed that Reed and the other neighbors were trespassing on her easement when Reed told her he’d make her move away from her property. She said the other neighbors were nodding their heads in agreement.
“They were aggressive and calling me vulgar names. I did not feel safe,” she wrote.
Detectives spoke with the neighbor the couple is suing. He said he found a shotgun in his garage that didn’t belong to him. He also said that Reed was familiar with the garage. The gun was loaded with shells similar to ones found in Reed’s former bedroom, court papers said.
John Reed allegedly told a deputy after the 2014 slide that he blamed people in the area for triggering the disaster that damaged his property, and that he could shoot those people and hide the bodies in the timber. He also threatened to drive his truck through the Oso fire station to kill Federal Emergency Management Agency responders, because he was reportedly upset over the lack of repairs to his damaged driveway.
Apparent dried blood was found in John Reed’s former home, including in a bathtub and a bedroom. What appears to be blood also was found in the missing couple’s vehicles, according to the search warrants.
Searchers using a helicopter also spotted a tarp placed over what appears to be a mound in the woods. The location is down an embankment not far from where the couple’s vehicles were found. The tarp appeared to have been placed recently and covered with freshly cut branches, according to the search warrants.
As of Monday afternoon, it was unclear whether ground crews have reached the tarp for a more thorough search. The sheriff’s office earlier had obtained permission to search from the private property owner, a logging company, court papers show. The Reeds may have been using all-terrain vehicles to access the site in the days after the couple disappeared, police wrote.
Also found in the couple’s vehicles or nearby were rubber gloves, lumber, cables and camouflage tarps. A receipt was found for the items dated April 13.
One neighbor’s surveillance video showed Shunn and Patenaude’s vehicles being driven toward the area of the embankment about 3 a.m. April 12. Investigators believe the vehicles were driven or pushed over the embankment. Freshly cut branches also had been placed on top of the vehicles, apparently as camouflage.
Records show the victims’ cell phones were at their home until about 3 a.m on April 12. The phones appeared to travel about two miles west and stayed in one location. The phones appeared to return to the area near the couple’s home three hours later and were shut off. As of Monday afternoon the phones were missing.
About six hours after the victims’ vehicles were moved, John Reed’s pickup was recorded on surveillance video headed toward the embankment where the missing couple’s vehicles were later found.
On April 15, Reed’s estranged wife told police he had been staying with his parents. His red truck has since been found at his parents’ house.
On Saturday, the former Reed home near Oso was searched, and more rubber gloves and tarps were found, along with multiple firearms and ammunition. Under a metal outbuilding, detectives also found an underground room believed to be an old marijuana growing operation.
So far the county has purchased 48 of 100 properties in the slide zone. A total of 15 parties have opted not to sell.
Heather Kelly with the county’s Department of Emergency Management has spent the past two years working to help the community recover from the mudslide. Kelly said she met the missing couple after the mudslide.
“Our thoughts are with the family and we hope they are able to achieve some answers soon regarding this whole situation,” she said.
Before moving to Oso in 2012, Shunn previously lived in Oregon. Patenaude is from British Columbia. Their families have asked for privacy since they went missing.
Both Reed brothers are felons.
John Reed’s most-serious brushes with the law involved a drug case years ago, but he was prosecuted in 2014 for allegedly violating state natural resource laws, court records show.
Tony Reed has a felony history dating back to the late 1980s in Snohomish County, including a 1996 pursuit after he drove into a police car and took off. When arrested, he allegedly kicked an officer in the head. In 1993, he and another man were accused of assaulting others with a pool cue and pliers.
He also had two burglary convictions as a juvenile and has amassed dozens of prosecutions for misdemeanors and arrests that brought him before a judge for bail, mostly for violations related to driving without a valid license.
His most-recent prosecution was 2014 in Kittitas County, where he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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