A man convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1977 for killing and mutilating the body of a 13-year-old boy is back at the Lewis County Jail awaiting a hearing on a motion to overturn his conviction.
Tommy L. Ragan, a former Lewis County resident who was 33 at the time of the incident, was initially charged with first-degree aggravated murder in January 1977, according to documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court. He pled guilty to second-degree murder on April 17, 1977.
“The court accepted my guilty plea, as well as the fact that I declared that I did not intend to kill the victim,” Ragan, now 81, states in a motion filed in Lewis County Superior Court on April 26, 2024.
Chronicle coverage from the time citing the investigation states that Ragan and the
victim, identified as Bruce Allen Kim, attended a party with several others at LeMae Apartments in Centralia on Jan. 2, 1977.
Following a dispute with Kim in the parking lot behind the apartment complex, “Ragan, who indicated he was intoxicated, became angry and hit and choked Kim,” according to a Chronicle article dated April 18, 1977.
The prosecutor at the time, Jeremy Randolph, reported that strangulation was the cause of Kim’s death.
“Authorities speculate that Ragan placed Kim’s body in his car, took it to Seattle and later buried it in a shallow grave near Yelm,” according to Chronicle coverage.
Investigators located Kim’s body, which was missing its head and had been “mutilated,” four days after Ragan’s arrest on an unrelated parole hold on Jan. 14, 1977, in Seattle.
Ragan was also initially charged with sexually assaulting and kidnapping Kim, but Randoph reportedly “admitted he did not have strong evidence to prove the kidnapping and sexual assault charges,” according to Chronicle coverage at the time.
Ragan was subsequently charged April 18, 1977, with being a “habitual criminal,” defined in Washington state law as a person who has committed multiple felony offenses. At the time, Ragan’s criminal record included a 1964 conviction for second-degree kidnapping, a 1969 conviction for second-degree burglary and 1969 conviction for taking a motor vehicle without permission.
“A jury found me a habitual criminal on May 11, 1977, and the court sentenced me to life in prison on May 16, 1977,” Ragan states in his April 2024 motion to overturn his conviction.
Ragan would have faced a lesser sentence had he not been found to be a habitual criminal, according to Chronicle coverage and court documents.
In the motion, Ragan argues that, due to a 2002 Washington State Supreme Court decision that found “conviction of a second-degree felony murder could not be based upon assault as the predicate felony,” Ragan “has been convicted of a nonexistent crime.”
Essentially, Ragan argues that because he did not intend to kill Kim, he cannot legally be convicted for murder.
“No statute established a crime of second-degree felony murder based upon assault at the time the (petitioner) committed the acts for which (he was) convicted,” Ragan states in the motion, adding, “A conviction (of second-degree murder) resting on assault as the underlying felony is not a conviction of a crime at all.”
Ragan argues, “Because movant has been convicted of a nonexistent crime, he has (been) shown fundamental constitutional error that has actually and substantially prejudiced him.”
Ragan argues that his conviction is “invalid and he is entitled to relief,” specifically that his second-degree murder and habitual criminal convictions both be dismissed.
Lewis County Superior Court appointed an attorney for Ragan on June 6, 2024, and a motion to transport Ragan from Stafford Creek Corrections Center to the Lewis County Jail was filed June 20.
Court records indicate Ragan was booked into the Lewis County Jail at 9:40 a.m. on July 12.
A hearing on the motion was initially scheduled for July 18 but was rescheduled.
On Aug. 22, a motion hearing was scheduled for 1 p.m. on Dec. 18.
