A Centralia woman accused of stealing her neighbor’s three dogs and then lying about it to law enforcement pleaded not guilty to felony second-degree theft and obstruction charges in Lewis County Superior Court on Tuesday.
The defendant, Debra Lee Cramer, 63, was initially charged on Dec. 20, 2022, and was issued a summons notice on Dec. 27 ahead of the Jan. 17 hearing.
Given that Cramer was present for that hearing alongside her attorney, a Lewis County Superior Court judge allowed Cramer to remain out of custody on her own personal recognizance.
The felony charges stem from a series of incidents beginning Nov. 1, 2022, when Cramer’s neighbor reportedly noticed his three dogs, which watched over the owner’s livestock on a property on Little Hanaford Road in Centralia, went missing.
About three weeks later, while flying his drone to check on his cattle and fence lines, the owner heard barking that sounded like his dogs from the neighboring property.
“I flew the drone over to my neighbor’s house and they were in her yard with her,” said the dogs’ owner, Andrew Deusen, in a written statement to The Chronicle. “This neighbor on several occasions lied to me about not having my dogs and even (went) so far as to ask me if I found them and send an emoji with tears when I said I have not.”
Deusen took the drone video footage of his dogs in his neighbor’s yard to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office the next day, Nov. 21.
When contacted by a deputy over the phone, Cramer reportedly claimed the dogs in her yard belonged to her sister-in-law.
After law enforcement officers were unsuccessful in contacting the sister-in-law, a deputy went to Cramer’s residence on Little Hanaford Road and observed three dogs matching the description of Deusen’s missing dogs. The deputy took cellphone photos of the dogs on Cramer’s property and sent them to Deusen, who “said that without a doubt they were his dogs,” according to charging documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court.
A deputy reportedly tried several times to contact Cramer over the next couple days, without success.
On Nov. 23, when a deputy finally got into contact with Cramer at her residence, the dogs were missing from Cramer’s yard.
Cramer reportedly said the dogs had escaped and she “had no idea where they were.”
Cramer allegedly apologized to the deputy, according to court documents.
“She said she lied about the dogs belonging to her sister-in-law. She said she was tired of the dogs getting out of Mr. Deusen’s property and wrecking her property. So when they came to her property again, she put them in her backyard,” according to the affidavit of probable cause filed in Lewis County Superior Court.
The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office filed one count each of second-degree theft and obstructing a law enforcement officer against Cramer in Lewis County Superior Court about a month later.
