Wsp Trooper Escapes Prosecution Spokane Man Failed To Help His Dying Mistress But, Authorities Say, He Didn’t Cause Her Death

An autopsy report shows that Benton County sheriff’s Lt. Nancy Shay, found dead in her Snoqualmie Pass motel room last summer, died of heart failure.

What it doesn’t show is that the 34-year-old Kennewick woman did not spend her last night alone.

With her in the motel room on Aug. 1 was Ron Dionne, a veteran Washington State Patrol narcotics and organized crime detective. The two were having an extramarital affair.

Dionne, after realizing that Shay was in trouble, corked a bottle of wine they had planned to share, rinsed out their drinking glasses and stuffed various items back in his duffel bag. The off-duty detective adjusted the woman’s negligee and covered her with a blanket, then fled without ever trying to administer first aid, authorities say.

He drove his WSP cruiser to a nearby convenience store and anonymously called 911 from its pay phone, authorities say.

Shay was dead when paramedics arrived.

The Yakima Herald-Republic, in a story Sunday, detailed how Kittitas County authorities pieced together the events of that tragic night, then concluded their investigation without ever filing any criminal charges against Dionne.

“One of the questions was: Did his conduct in any way cause her death?” said Kittitas County Deputy Prosecutor Candace Hooper. “And the evidence as far as I can tell, from the pathologist and everything else we had, is no.”

Dionne, 39, of Spokane, resigned from the Washington State Patrol in early November, ending a 17-year law enforcement career.

The WSP had launched an internal affairs probe, accusing him of violating about a half dozen departmental regulations ranging from failure to provide medical assistance to impeding the Kittitas County death investigation.

WSP Chief Annette Sandberg said Dionne’s resignation ended the departmental probe. “Had he not resigned, we would have carried out that investigation to its logical conclusion,” she said.

Dionne, who has an unlisted telephone number, could not be reached for comment. The Yakima Herald-Republic sent registered mail requesting an interview and left messages with several of his friends. None was returned.

Shay’s husband, a Kennewick-based state trooper, said he was shocked to learn no criminal charges are being filed, but he declined further comment. He has retained an attorney and is considering filing a civil lawsuit.

The autopsy found that Shay had an undiagnosed heart condition. She also was taking Prozac, a time-release anti-depressant.

The autopsy found that Shay had partially doubled up on doses, taking a new one before the cycle from the previous dose had been fully exhausted. It meant that the final portions of the first dose and the beginning stages of the second were mixing in her bloodstream.

“Neither of these two things would have been fatal in and of themselves,” said sheriff’s detective Clay Myers, who served as lead investigator. “But it was the combination … that triggered it.”

Two months would pass before Dionne’s link to the case would be discovered.

Shay had been attending a law enforcement conference at the motel. Dionne had been neither a participant in the conference nor a registered guest of the motel.

Dionne’s name surfaced after Shay’s husband called Myers after learning that his wife and Dionne might have been having an affair. He passed on his suspicions that they had been together the night she died.

Dionne, when confronted, acknowledged having been with the woman, removing items from the motel room and making the anonymous 911 call from a nearby convenience store, Myers said.

Authorities said it was a panicky attempt to conceal their affair.

Doctors concluded that Shay would have died even if medical assistance had been summoned immediately.

Deputy Prosecutor Hooper bristles at the suggestion that authorities went easy on Dionne because he was a fellow law enforcement officer.

Hooper said she and sheriff’s detectives scoured state criminal statutes looking for an appropriate charge to file. Although Dionne fled the motel room without trying to administer first aid and took deliberate steps to conceal his presence, state law does not consider that illegal, Hooper said.

“Frankly, I thought his conduct was so heinous that there ought to be a crime that described it,” she said. “But I couldn’t find one.”

Shay, according to what Dionne told investigators, was alive when he fled. And although he waited until he was safely down the street before placing the 911 call, he did take steps to summon medical assistance.

Myers said he believes the case, if nothing else, illustrates the narrow legal elements authorities must examine when investigating any case.

“Moral right and wrong don’t always coincide with legal right and wrong,” Myers said. “And while we may be appalled at the conduct, we are obligated in law enforcement to deal only with legal right and wrong.”