Records Shed More Light on Thurston County Murder Suspect’s ‘Biker Buddies’ Strong-Arm Claim

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Newly released investigative records shed more light on the brutal killing of an Orting-area man last month, including his ties to a motorcycle club that the father of an Olympia teenager charged with the murder claimed was involved in the death. 

Pierce County sheriff’s detectives connected murder victim Dan McCaw, 51, to the Amigos Motorcycle Club — a support club of the notorious Bandidos Motorcycle Club — early on in their investigation, but police reports released to The News Tribune so far include no direct evidence that club members played a role in the killing. 

Rather than an outlaw motorcycle gang, mounting evidence collected during the investigation’s first 24 hours pointed toward then-missing 16-year-old Gabriel Davies, whose mother dated and lived with McCaw until recently. Davies and his older sister lived at McCaw’s home near Orting on and off since 2018, which spurred a custody battle between their divorced parents.

Davies’ father alleged his son’s familiarity with McCaw’s home was the reason the victim’s “biker buddies” approached the teenager and demanded he steal something from the house. The father said his son concocted a plan with another 16-year-old, Justin Yoon, due to threats from the motorcycle club. 

“At this point, we’re just checking to see if that actually occurred or not,” sheriff’s department spokesperson Sgt. Darren Moss told The News Tribune on Thursday.

Moss said if detectives uncover “actionable” evidence related to threats against the teens, the sheriff’s department will make arrests accordingly. 

It doesn’t appear Pierce County prosecutors have bought into the story from Davies’ father, which blamed the stabbing and fatal shooting of McCaw on his son’s friend, Yoon. Deputy prosecutor Lisa Wagner accused Davies of staging his disappearance to avoid criminal charges in court earlier this month. 

Davies and Yoon have pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first- and second-degree murder, and remain jailed in lieu of $1 million bail. The News Tribune, which does not typically name juvenile defendants, has published their names due to the seriousness of the alleged offenses and coverage of Davies’ disappearance.

More than 300 pages of investigative documents provided to The News Tribune through a public records request this week show how detectives connected McCaw’s death with the disappearance of Davies and provide additional details linking the two teenagers to the killing. 

Attorneys representing the Davies and Yoon families have declined to speak with reporters. McCaw’s mother declined an interview request last week.

Amigos Motorcycle Club 

During an initial search of McCaw’s home on the morning his body was discovered, investigators noted Amigos MC riding gear hanging in his garage, according to investigative documents.

Several hours later, one of McCaw’s close friends stopped by the house wearing similar Amigos MC apparel. The friend became emotional and visibly upset when a detective told him McCaw was dead, according to investigative documents. 

Last week, the man started a GoFundMe for McCaw’s family that has since raised a few thousand dollars, including a $1,500 donation from Machinehead Motorcycle Club Puget Sound. McCaw’s friend did not respond to an interview request from The News Tribune. 

Neighbors and friends told investigators McCaw joined Amigos MC a year or two before he was killed. McCaw’s club membership and expanding role strained a number of his relationships, according to investigative documents.

He stopped talking to one neighbor he’d known for several years. She said he frequently hosted club events. 

Another neighbor who was previously close with McCaw said her family distanced themselves after he became a club member. She told detectives that McCaw made moonshine in his garage and dumped the mash on her property. Her dogs ate it, and she threatened to call the cops if it happened again. 

A supervisor for McCaw, who worked as a mechanic, said his loyalty to the motorcycle club might have been the reason he broke up with Amanda Olufson, Gabriel Davies’ mother. She reportedly declined to pledge with Amigos MC and gave McCaw an ultimatum: her or the club.

A neighbor said Olufson packed up a U-Haul with her things on Aug. 13, about two weeks before her son went missing and McCaw was killed. 

Coworkers described McCaw as terse and quick-tempered. Some were afraid of him when he got angry. 

The News Tribune previously reported that Davies’ father, Kenneth Davies, described McCaw as volatile. Kenneth Davies said McCaw threatened the person his daughter was dating over a cell phone charger, according to court filings in a custody dispute that began after Olufson moved her children in with McCaw in 2018.

One of McCaw’s neighbors told homicide detectives that Gabriel Davies, who had once played with her son frequently, had stopped coming around as much in recent months, according to investigative documents. 

Gabriel Davies told Olympia police that McCaw threatened him with a handgun in January, a Pierce County detective wrote in investigative documents. The detective noted he had not yet received a copy of the Olympia police report when he learned of the incident earlier this month. 

Public records officers for the Olympia Police Department and Thurston County Sheriff’s Office told The News Tribune that they were not immediately able to identify a corresponding incident during searches of law enforcement records.

Moss, the Pierce County sheriff’s spokesperson, said he did not have additional details about the alleged threat.

McCaw Found Dead

On Sept. 1, deputies responded to a welfare check for McCaw after he hadn’t shown up to work in four days. They recognized an overpowering smell coming from behind his front door: decay.

The deputies knocked repeatedly with no answer and got permission from their supervisor to go in, according to investigative documents. They found the side door across from his detached garage unlocked. 

Just past the door, they found McCaw on his side in the laundry room. 

His head and shoulders were in the kitchen dining nook, with a .45-caliber shell casing about a foot away. Another 9 mm shell casing fell to the floor near shelving in the laundry room.

Apparent blood spatter was on the walls, door and laundry machines, according to investigative documents. Upon closer inspection, investigators found more blood inside the door frame. 

In the kitchen, a live .45-caliber round was on the ground next to the fridge. A batch of spring rolls sat in the air fryer on the counter. 

It looked like someone had punched the walls in a couple of places throughout the house, but the damage appeared old, according to investigative documents.

After a thorough search, investigators found two empty handgun holsters in McCaw’s office and bedroom but no weapons to go with them. 



The medical examiner told detectives a 9 mm bullet broke McCaw’s skull behind his ear but might not have killed him. Another, larger bullet entered his chest, perforated his aorta and passed through his liver — a fatal blow. 

He had seven suspected stab wounds in his chest and another in his armpit. He might have suffered wounds on his wrist and forearm from defending himself.

During the search of McCaw’s home, law enforcement abruptly evacuated after McCaw’s work supervisor told detectives McCaw made comments about booby-traps, saying they were in case government officials tried to get inside. 

McCaw believed in conspiracy theories and felt paranoid the government was out to get him, coworkers told detectives, according to investigative documents. That was part of the reason he had so many surveillance cameras surrounding his home. 

The News Tribune reported last week that he once flew a Confederate flag in his front yard, according to court filings. In his private collection, he had a Nazi swastika and a yellow Gadsen flag, which has been co-opted by far-right and anti-government groups.

Detached Garage Search 

The main door to McCaw’s detached garage, where he was known to smoke and drink, was unlocked and had a brown smear that resembled dried blood on it, according to investigative documents. 

Surveillance footage showed him leave the garage and “stumble” inside in the early morning hours of Aug. 28. Shortly thereafter, two “skinny males” resembling Yoon and Davies, who had broken into the house through a dog door, ran back and forth between the garage and house before fleeing with several items.

Inside, investigators found two loaded rifle magazines near the door, McCaw’s motorcycle and riding gear, ammunition-reloading equipment and a large safe. 

According to police records, McCaw’s mother gave the combination to the safe to investigators after saying they would be “shocked and surprised by the contents.” She joked McCaw would haunt her or detectives for opening it and said Davies’ mother had just called her to say it was good no one knew how to get inside. 

Once unlocked, detectives found nearly two dozen shotguns, rifles and handguns along with various empty ammo magazines, according to investigative documents.

A few plastic bags held various coins. A glass jewelry holder sat empty. Several purple Crown Royal bags contained bullets or pill bottles with cannabis products inside. 

A notebook cataloged details about his motorcycle club. On a lower shelf, there was a void about the size of an ammo canister — an irregularity compared to the rest of the items stacked and stuffed inside, detectives wrote.

Davies Connection Scrutinized 

The lead Thurston County detective on Gabriel Davies’ missing person’s case reached out to Pierce County investigators about the potential connection between their cases the same day McCaw was found. Davies had been missing since the day before when he left for football practice but never arrived. 

Yoon, Davies’ now-alleged co-conspirator, had been seen going to Davies’ house the day he disappeared to get $30, according to investigative documents. Yoon later told Thurston County detectives he didn’t know anything about Davies’ disappearance. 

Earlier that morning when McCaw was found dead in Pierce County, Yoon’s dad called Thurston County investigators saying he had information about a crime involving Davies. The elder Yoon’s attorney later added that it was a homicide in Pierce County.

At that point, detectives had no evidence connecting Davies to the killing and determined the information from Yoon was “purely speculative,” according to investigative documents. 

Davies was found in rural Thurston County shortly after Pierce County investigators left McCaw’s house for the night. He was missing his shirt, shoes and socks but had no injuries to suggest he’d been walking in the woods for a day and a half. He had some minor scratches on his thighs. 

Initially, Davies told detectives he didn’t remember what happened, then he said he couldn’t tell them or else people would hurt him. He said he broke his own phone out of fear of what police would find.

Pierce County investigators told Thurston County authorities not to question Davies about the homicide and to release him to his family, according to investigative documents. 

The next day, Pierce County detectives watched surveillance footage from McCaw’s house. McCaw had several external cameras connected to a DVR, plus nonworking wireless cameras inside and out. The DVR was secured in a welded metal box with a padlock on it. 

Masks covered the lower halves of the faces of the two young men who broke into McCaw’s home, but investigators quickly saw a resemblance with Davies and Yoon from the areas around their eyes, police records say.

The suspect resembling Davies wore a trucker hat and some sort of medical mask. The other, believed to be Yoon, wore a ski mask. Both had headlamps. 

As Pierce County homicide investigators met with the lead Thurston County detective on the Davies missing person’s case, the teen’s father called authorities. 

Kenneth Davies said members of Amigos MC followed his son on the day he went missing and pulled him out of his truck in the area it was found abandoned. He said his son wanted to talk with Thurston County detectives. The lead investigator said he would get back to him.

Shortly thereafter, the elder Davies called again. 

“Gabe was involved in Dan McCaw’s death,” he said soon after he started talking. 

He claimed McCaw’s “biker buddies” from Amigos MC had strong-armed his son into steal something from McCaw, so the teen developed a plan with Yoon to swipe something from a safe. The elder Davies said Yoon stabbed McCaw when he came inside and his son only heard gunshots.

Kenneth Davies told detectives that he knew his son was going to be arrested that night. 

In Gabriel Davies’ truck, detectives found a black mask in the backseat. They also seized a black ski mask and headlamp from Yoon’s house, records show. 

After police arrested the teens on Sept. 2, Davies led investigators to where he said he dumped the weapons connected to McCaw’s killing.

Near the Old Olympia Brewery in Tumwater, detectives recovered a 9 mm Ruger handgun and a .45-caliber Sig Sauer pistol — the same caliber as the bullets found in McCaw’s body — as well as more than a dozen fixed blade and throwing knives. 

The guns were inside an ammo canister: the item detectives had suspected was missing from McCaw’s safe.