EVERETT — Tony Clyde Reed surrendered his freedom to U.S. Marshals last week so he could answer to the allegations against him, his attorney said Monday.
“My client is innocent of the first-degree murder charges,” Ellensburg attorney James Kirkham said. “He’s here to defend himself.”
Reed, 49, is expected to be arraigned Tuesday on two counts of premeditated murder and unlawful gun possession. He was being held on $5 million bail.
Reed fled to Mexico with his older brother, John Blaine Reed, shortly after Patrick Shunn and Monique Patenaude were reported missing from their Oso home.
The fugitives’ father recently hired Kirkham, who has represented Tony Reed in the past. The Ellensburg attorney helped arrange a peaceful end to a month-long manhunt, and Tony Reed surrendered in San Diego, California.
He was booked into the Snohomish County Jail on Friday.
John Reed, 53, remains on the lam. He’s wanted on a $5 million arrest warrant.
He had lived next to the missing couple off Whitman Road in the Oso area. There had been bad blood between the neighbors that seemed to get worse after the 2014 mudslide that killed 43 people. Patenaude had told friends that she was afraid of Reed.
John Reed sold his property to the county under a program that is part of the disaster relief. Several weeks before the couple disappeared he was trespassed from his former home after he’d been found squatting on the land.
County officials said Reed was extremely unhappy about being told to leave.
Shunn and Patenaude were last seen April 12. Their whereabouts are unknown, although detectives presume that the Reeds murdered the couple, hid their bodies and dumped their vehicles.
Search and rescue crews have combed the mountainous terrain around their home on multiple occasions.
Investigators discovered significant amounts of blood in the couple’s vehicles, in John Reed’s pickup truck and at his former property, according to court papers.
Kirkham said he couldn’t say whether Tony Reed, who lived in Ellensburg, could help locate the missing couple, and he declined to say if his client had spoken with homicide detectives.
“He’s certainly sympathetic with the family that the bodies haven’t been found,” the attorney said Monday.
He and his investigator have spent the last couple of days getting familiar with the Oso area, Kirkham said. They also visited Tony Reed in jail.
“You visibly could see the relief on his face seeing someone he knew and somebody who is watching out for his interests, rather than out to get him,” Kirkham said.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.
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