New Charges Had Not Been Filed as of Wednesday Afternoon Following Release of Suspects in Lewis County 

Case Against Pair Allegedly Connected to March Overdose Death in Centralia Referred to King County 

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The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office has forwarded the case against two people allegedly connected to a March overdose death to the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, the Centralia Police Department said in a news release on Wednesday. 

The King County Prosecutor’s Office will make its own independent charging decision for the case. 

Charges had not been filed in King County as of Wednesday, May 31, The Chronicle confirmed.

The Centralia Police Department conducted the overdose death investigation and referred the case to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office for charging in March, 

A Lewis County Superior Court judge granted the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office’s motions to dismiss the cases against Emma Bailey, 22, of Moscow, Idaho, and Demetrius R. Robinson, 36, of Tacoma, on Thursday, May 25, and release orders for both codefendants were approved that same day. 

The two were each charged in March with one count of conspiracy to commit violation of the uniform controlled substances act in Lewis County Superior Court following a Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET) investigation.

The specific reasons for asking the cases to be dismissed were not clarified in the public court documents. 

However, the Centralia Police Department stated Wednesday the dismissals were due to a determination made during the investigation “that King County was the appropriate venue for prosecution.” 



That conclusion was reached after Bailey’s attorney raised “the question of prosecutorial jurisdiction,” according to the news release. 

Bailey and Robinson were accused of delivering cocaine to a 22-year-old man, who was visiting from the University of Idaho in Moscow, shortly before he overdosed at a party in Seattle the night of March 20. 

He received care at Harborview Medical Center for the overdose before he was discharged at about 2 a.m. and picked up by the friend, who lives in Centralia. 

Officers with the Centralia Police Department responded at about 9 a.m. on March 21 to a report that the man, who was found by his friend in an apartment in the 3000 block of Borst Avenue, was unconscious and not breathing, according to a news release from the police department. 

The friend told law enforcement the man went to sleep and stopped breathing shortly before the friend called 911, according to court documents.

Before their release on Thursday, Bailey and Robinson had been in custody on $100,000 bail  since March 21 awaiting a May 30 trial date.