Tommy L. Ragan, a former Lewis County resident who was convicted in 1977 for the murder of Bruce Allen Kim and whose conviction was recently overturned, has died.
He was 81.
Ragan was in the custody of the Washington state Department of Corrections at Stafford Creek Corrections Center serving a life sentence on an unrelated case at the time of his death.
His cause of death had not been publicly announced as of Wednesday afternoon.
"We are obviously disappointed that the defendant died without the conviction on his record, but are comforted by the fact that there is no doubt the atrocities were committed by the defendant and by the fact that the Kim family can finally have the finality they so desperately deserve,” Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said in a news release sent out by his office on Wednesday. “Although we never had the opportunity to meet Mr. Kim, as we prepared to go to trial in this matter, it became obvious what a fine young man Mr. Kim was and the incredibly positive impact his life and legacy continue to have to this day."
Ragan, who was 33 at the time of the violent incident, was initially charged with first-degree aggravated murder in January 1977, according to documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court.
Chronicle reporting from the time states that Ragan and 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 pleaded 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 stated in a motion to vacate his conviction that was filed in Lewis County Superior Court on April 26, 2024.
In the motion, Ragan argued that, due to a 2004 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.”
The case, “In the Matter of the Personal Restraint of Jesse Hinton, Et. Al.,” was filed in 2002 and was adjudicated by the Washington state Supreme Court on Nov. 18, 2004.
The case involved a group of petitioners, including Hinton, who challenged their second-degree felony murder convictions on the grounds that, at the time of their alleged offenses, assault was not recognized as a predicate felony under the relevant statute.
A predicate felony is defined as a crime that is a component of a larger crime.
The Washington State Supreme Court ruled in the petitioners’ favor. The ruling invalidated all second-degree murder convictions based on assault in Washington state.
Because Ragan’s second-degree murder conviction was based on his alleged assault of Kim, his case was invalidated by the state Supreme Court’s ruling in the Jesse Hinton case.
In line with that Washington State Supreme Court ruling, a Lewis County Superior Court judge ruled Dec. 18, 2024, to formally vacate Ragan’s guilty plea and conviction.
“There’s really not much the state can do but concede in this case, based on the decision by the supreme court, which doesn’t really give me a lot of choice, either,” Judge Joely Yeager said during the motion hearing on Dec. 18.
The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office refiled charges against Ragan on Jan. 23, 2025, again charging him with one count of first-degree aggravated murder.
“It was the intent of this Office to have Mr. Ragan stand trial for the senseless murder, but that cannot happen now,” the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office stated in the news release on Wednesday. “Regardless, there is no doubt that Mr. Ragan was the perpetrator of the horrific acts and the Lewis County Prosecutor's Office is confident that any jury that would have heard the evidence would have agreed.”
At the time his 1977 conviction was overturned on Dec. 18, Ragan’s defense attorney, Ruth Rivas, told the court, “We anticipate a resolution in this case soon … This is not something where he’s going to exercise his right to go to trial 50 years later.”
Ragan’s arraignment and trial-setting hearing was scheduled for May 19.
In the Wednesday news release, the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office thanked the Centralia Police Department, specifically Police Chief Andy Caldwell and Detective Tim O’Dell, for making “this case a priority for the sake of justice and for the family of Bruce Kim.”
The prosecutor’s office stated that “absent their tireless efforts and the support of the Kim family, this case would not have been able to be retried.”
“When we learned of the possibility that Tommy Ragan might get out of prison, it was an easy decision to allocate resources to reopen and reinvestigate the murder case to ensure justice was served,” Caldwell stated in the news release.
The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office additionally thanked Victim-Witness Coordinator Maritza Bravo, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Sara Beigh and Chief Criminal Deputy William Halstead for “their exceptional service to the case and the people of Lewis County through their work on this case.”
Ragan had been in Washington state Department of Corrections custody since his conviction for Kim’s murder on April 17, 1977.
At the time of Ragan’s murder conviction, 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.
On April 18, 1977, the day after he was convicted for Kim’s murder, Ragan was charged with being a “habitual criminal,” defined in Washington state law as a person who has committed multiple felony offenses.
A few days later, on April 21, 1977, Ragan was also charged in Lewis County Superior Court for an incident involving a 16-year-old male victim that occurred in October 1974, according to Washington state Court of Appeals documents, which indicate the victim didn’t step forward until sometime in 1977. The case was ultimately transferred to Pacific County Superior Court, where he was convicted of second-degree assault and sodomy and determined to be a habitual criminal. He was sentenced to life in prison.
He unsuccessfully appealed that conviction in 1979 and was still serving out his sentence at Stafford Creek Corrections Center at the time of his death.
