MONROE — Seven staff members from the Monroe Correctional Complex could face discipline as state prison officials continue to examine what happened the night officer Jayme Biendl was killed.
A report released Friday fou
nd some officers didn’t follow policies and procedures, an officer wasn’t where he should have been, and some staff were duped by the inmate now charged with Biendl’s Jan. 29 killing.
The team of investigators said convicted
rapist Byron Scherf
Biendl, 32, was found strangled on the chapel stage at the Washington State Reformatory. Scherf is charged with aggravated first-degree murder and could face the death penalty.
Investigators stopped short of saying that those missteps by staff contributed to Biendl’s death.
Had prison policies been followed, “it would have improved the opportunity that things might have turned out differently,” said Jeffrey Uttecht, who headed the review team.
He and several other prison officials answered questions about the internal review at a press conference Friday morning in Olympia.
The 13-page report blacked out officers’ names. The investigation was conducted by state Department of Corrections administrators and staff from other prisons.
At Monroe, prison officials are conducting separate disciplinary investigations involving the seven officers who were on duty during Biendl’s killing, officials said. Two were identified as lieutenants, one is a sergeant and four others are corrections officers. They could face several punishments, including letters of reprimand, demotions or being fired.
Bernie Warner, secretary of the state Department of Corrections, said every level of the agency was examined, including top leadership at the Monroe Correctional Complex.
“We also looked at the performance of Superintendent Scott Frakes to determine if a change needed to be made,” Warner said. “What we found is a talented, well-respected leader who has the right skills, background and temperament to manage the state’s largest prison.”
Frakes said he feels partially responsible for the problems that night.
“It is clear that established procedures and policies were not followed as they are designed,” Frakes said. “As superintendent, I recognize that I have a role in that breakdown and I am taking action to prevent this from occurring again.”
Union leaders representing corrections workers criticized the timing of the release of the report and said top management, including Frakes, should be held accountable.
“My initial reaction was that to imply that anyone other than Byron Scherf is responsible for the death of officer Jayme Biendl is an insult to our members,” said Jim Smith, director of corrections and law enforcement for Teamsters Union 117.
The department of corrections should have waited until the disciplinary investigations of the officers and a state Department of Labor and Industries review are completed before releasing the report, he said.
“To come out this soon when you still have other investigations ongoing was irresponsible and didn’t give a complete picture of what occurred,” he said.
Smith also criticized a recent decision to hire two more administrators to help run the Monroe complex, which includes five separate prison units and about 2,500 inmates. That seems to be an acknowledgement that current leadership was not effective, he said.
The investigation released Friday determined that some corrections officers weren’t even aware Scherf was loose the night Biendl was killed.
“Had Scherf tried to remain hidden in the chapel, he most likely would have been discovered by the only officer headed to the chapel to conduct a search,” the report found. “Single officer building searches in an emergency are extremely risky.”
An officer assigned to check one of the buildings said she didn’t search several rooms because they were dark and she feared an inmate would jump out at her, the report said.
Investigators also determined that a corrections officer who was assigned to watch inmates near the chapel was not in the proper location at 8:30 p.m. when inmates were being moved back to their cells.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever know if that would have made a difference or not,” Uttecht said.
Policy requires officers to stay in their zones during their shift, and to not leave their zone without authorization of the shift sergeant or lieutenant.
Scherf appears to have been aware of the security lapse that night.
The review team examined a letter from Scherf sent to prison officials in April. The letter stated there was no officer on the walkway between Tower 9 and the chapel during the time he allegedly has admitted slipping back inside to attack Biendl.
“Scherf suggested in the letter that any meaningful investigation would include a review of why (officers) were not posted on the walkway,” according to the report. “One inference that could be taken from the Scherf letter is that he looked for and saw the opportunity to return to the chapel undetected.”
Investigators said there was a memo at the prison requiring officers to make certain that people were at their posts, but some officers said they were unaware of the document. The review team heard that the process had been followed, but was dropped more than a year ago.
Much of the investigation centered on why Biendl’s body was not found sooner.
“What we found was a staff that quickly responded to what they initially believed was an escape attempt,” Uttecht said. “Had they checked inside the chapel they would have found Officer Biendl sooner, but that would not have prevented the murder.”
There also was concern about one officer’s contradictory reports. In one account, he said he secured the chapel after Scherf was found but did not search the building. In a written report, he said he searched the building.
“It is obvious that the building was not immediately searched,” Uttecht said. “That was a breakdown.”
The review team found that officers were so intent on catching Scherf and filing reports before their shifts ended that they failed to account for their colleague, or to critically examine Scherf’s story.
“This tunnel vision appears to have helped facilitate the failure to complete interior building searches,” the report said.
Investigators said officers should have been more skeptical of Scherf when he claimed that he’d fallen asleep in the chapel and later said he was planning an escape.
“These inconsistent and implausible explanations by Scherf should have given an experienced uniformed correctional employee immediate reason to ensure the chapel” was searched, the investigators wrote.
It wasn’t until 10:18 p.m. when a shift officer in the main control area discovered that Biendl’s radio and keys were missing. Staff tried to reach her by phone, at home, before checking the chapel.
Some officers that night were so convinced by Scherf’s story about Biendl leaving him behind that one wondered aloud if she was going to be in trouble when she returned to work, investigators said.
There was evidence that Biendl tried to radio for help, but investigators found it understandable that officers didn’t realize that two brief screeches over their portable radios were pleas for assistance. Each transmission lasted about one second and they occurred at 8:32 p.m. The noise was “unusual enough to catch several staff members’ attention.”
The review team listened to the recordings several times and isolated the sounds to just Biendl’s radio.
“The keying of Officer Biendl’s radio could easily have been missed or not heard due to other radio transmissions,” the team concluded.
The report made almost no mention of why Scherf’s security classification was changed from close custody to medium security. Investigators found “no clear documentation” that the change was approved by a deputy director.
Corrections records show Scherf early on had been deemed a serious risk to female employees, and was considered manipulative and cunning.
He is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole after being convicted of two rapes and another sexually motivated attack on a woman.
Related story: Changes to improve safety being made at state’s prisons
Diana Hefley contributed to this story.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com
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