BY MASON SOTO
Talauna Reed is the eldest of Yvonne McDonald’s nieces. I sat down with her to talk about growing up with her mother’s sister and the daunting events surrounding her aunt’s death in Olympia on Aug. 7. She offered an invaluable account of the love that surrounds Yvonne, as well as the struggle to hold a community and its institutions accountable amidst tragedy.
“We’ve been close since I was a kid […] If Yvonne and I were in the same room my mom would be calling me Yvonne and her Talauna, I mean she just, she can’t separate the two […] She was always interested in what us kids were doing […] She says she raised all of us […] I remember when I was young, she used to take me shopping all the time, I mean Yvonne was a little diva […] I used to want to be like her […] She didn’t end up having kids but even then she wasn’t like my other aunts who already had kids […] Yvonne was, you know, chill, she was like a big kid at heart.”
Born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Louisiana and Washington, Yvonne was always close to her family. She made a point to maintain connections to her community. This inclination — her passion for getting involved — started at home in the hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, with her mother.
“My grandma worked for the Human Rights Commission, so her kids were very connected […] I think that’s what got Yvonne into the type of person that she was, what she wanted to do, you know […] Yvonne’s passions were independence, financial independence, her passions were equality.”
She was always trying to “bridge the gap” between far off relatives and herself, connecting with distant family in New Orleans and making sure to always know how the kids in the family were doing. As she tried to keep everyone connected, Yvonne always stood out in her family for her love for education and how she shared it with the kids around her. She would gift books to her nieces and nephews instead of toys, including Talauna’s twins, and the teenage brother and sister still have boxes full.
“I just remember the stories where I hear people in the family say, ‘Oh my gosh, Yvonne has gone nuts, all she does is talk all these big words,’ and my response to that was, she’s trying to challenge you intellectually […] You should always challenge yourself to go up a level of intellect. And I have that conversation with her all the time — I had that conversation with her the Saturday before she passed. You know, she just wanted us to to do good for ourselves and for the community, and unfortunately, the community loses out not having her here.”
Yvonne worked from the age of 14, and attended both the University of Washington and The Evergreen State College, where she studied Public Administration. Eventually she worked in a number of state jobs at the Department of Ecology, Employment Security Office, and Sentencing Guidelines Commission. It was in the latter job that she witnessed imbalances in the sentencing of marginalized groups that affected her world-view.
“That is when she really got passionate about social injustice […] I remember her constantly spouting, spewing out stats to me, and although I didn’t always quite understand them, I listened because I felt like she was teaching me something […] Yvonne was pro-healthy existence, informed existence, pro-people. And you know, flip that, she was anti-racism, you know, those things. It wasn’t that she just wanted to be a better black woman, she wanted to be a better person […] She was spiritual, she believed in God, and I know in probably the last two years she really spoke about how she wouldn’t let anybody take her joy away. You know whether she went through a job loss or something she just shrugged it off as, you know, ‘Their loss, not mine, I have bigger and better things to do in this world and I’m going to do them.’ […] She was beautiful and she was her own person, and she was on her own planet. I mean sometimes I felt like, ‘Yvonne can I join you?’ In the sense that she was really focused. It’s so scary to think that maybe somebody targeted her […] She was very private and that’s kind of hard in this whole thing, too […] I mean everybody’s private to a certain degree, but I think that’s a component that maybe has something to do with what happened to her. I mean maybe somebody she knew that we didn’t know.”
The Investigation Unfolds
Theories and speculation have surrounded Yvonne’s death more than answers. When found, she was unconscious on a lawn only a few blocks from her home, with her shoes and purse placed beside her and her pants down. While the family wanted to have faith in the capabilities of Thurston County and Olympia Police Department (OPD) to deliver justice, Talauna explained how lack of communication, false promises, and running into walls when seeking answers has cast doubt onto the state’s intentions to solve this case.
When Talauna arrived at the hospital, her aunt was on life support, and Detective Al Weinnig from OPD was already consulting the family. “He was very vague” when describing what happened, she says, perhaps to see what the family would assume. It was the assumptions that Weinnig seemed to make himself that first worried Talauna. He described a laceration on her chin, and bruising on her face, which he said could have been from a fall, and when he mentioned that she was only partially clothed, he avoided confirming an attack.
“He said she was found with her pants down, and I said so somebody hurt her? [He says,] ‘Well, no it doesn’t seem that way, you know, it it looks like she just walked off, we found half a bottle of vodka on her in her purse.’ I said my aunt didn’t get down like that […] She wasn’t out there, she wasn’t a partier, you know what I mean? […] Yvonne was so little, Yvonne didn’t even have anything big in her house […] She didn’t carry nothing big because she was a little person, and so I said how big is this bottle and he said maybe like a pint-size. First of all he’s a police detective. You know your pints, your quarts, you know your measurements […] Even if she had alcohol in her system that doesn’t mean she deserved to die, and that’s not how she died. Period.”
Talauna said Weinnig continued to offer murky answers, saying the bottle was maybe halfway gone, but not explaining whether alcohol was on her breath or any tests done to determine her blood alcohol content. The initial explanation he offered that she stumbled while squatting in a yard two blocks from her own home to urinate did not convince the family.
“Yvonne’s a scaredy-cat. If you didn’t call Yvonne first and you knocked on her door she wouldn’t open it for you […] She was single, petite, and she needed to guard herself, I mean against predators or whatever […] And she’s definitely not going to walk off to the bushes two blocks from her house to go pee […] I was still listening to him talk, and he goes, ‘Oh yeah, one more thing, the paramedics say they found what looked to be track marks on her arm.’ I came out of my zone. I said, ‘Now, you’re wrong.’”
Talauna expressed her own belief — which aligns with the response from the campaign she has spearheaded, Justice For Yvonne McDonald — that investigators made statements about alleged signs of alcohol and drug use to imply Yvonne was “somebody unworthy of life” and unworthy of a thorough investigation. An uneasy start would only lead to more direct affronts to the family’s trust.
“I said, are you going to call us to get information because I talked to Yvonne on Saturday, I know where she was going, I know who she was going to be with […] I mean I’m just trying to help this man solve this murder. He said, exactly, you guys will be the ones to give us the most meat, the evidence for this case probably because you’re the people that knew her the most […] So he gave us all a card […] He didn’t call me though. He still hasn’t called me. He still has not called me one time. To this day, he still has not interviewed one person in this family. Not one person. Hasn’t interviewed one person in the family, not one person, and it makes me so angry. How the — are you doing an investigation and you have not interviewed the family individually?“
Talauna said that, despite pushback due to protocol about the family wanting a rape kit done as soon as possible, investigators and police told her that extenuating circumstances allowed them to search Yvonne’s home and download data from her cell phone without a search warrant.
“Initially my mom was the one contacting Al, and it was fresh, we wanted to give him everything we had […] [Weinnig] said, ‘Well the prosecutor says this is extenuating circumstances, they don’t need a search warrant, they’re going to search through her apartment,’ it’s like he went to her apartment the next day and he did all these things that normally you need warrants for, but he said because it’s extenuating circumstances they were going to go ahead and go through with it. Oh and they were downloading the messages for her phone […] and he says they were able to download the messages right away, the next day, and we were like, ‘They’re working on it.”
At this point Yvonne’s family members were trying to piece together their own information and they offered theories to investigators. There was a friend they knew Yvonne was hanging around with around the time of her death, whom the family did not know personally, but she says that investigators have yet to explain who this person was.
“I know she was going to meet up with that friend, and when [Weinnig] said they went through the phone […] I said did you find out this friend, he goes, ‘Oh we really didn’t find anything.’ […] He said, ‘We only found one friend’[…] and I said I’ve known [the friend investigators found] since before I was born, that’s a childhood friend, that’s not the friend I’m talking about […]. [Yvonne] doesn’t own a car, she has to use a phone to connect […] I think they know who [the unknown friend] is, I’m not kidding, […] I think they know. […] They don’t want to pursue it and they want to cover it up and definitely because the prosecutor, he hasn’t said one word since this thing popped off.”
Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim nor his office have made public statements about Yvonne’s death, and still the only detective assigned to the case is Al Weinnig. After a rally at Thurston County Coroner’s Office on Sept. 18, in a meeting with Coroner Gary Warnock, Talauna said she realized the investigation of evidence stalled from the beginning.
“The coroner, when I met him last week told me specifically, I said why did it take so long for her evidence to get sent out and what did you collect […] I mean what are you waiting for? They kept saying toxicology reports. For what? […] So he goes, we turned it over to the police, to the detectives [at OPD] that Friday, or at least by Monday […] He said the evidence has been out of their hands since the Friday after her death and the police sat on it. […] [The] deputy coroner […] he said something about the prosecutor. He was explaining something and he says, ‘Yeah I report to the prosecutor.’ I said ‘excuse me’ […] and he never said it again, God as my witness […] I said who do you answer to again? Who do you directly answer to? He would not answer that. It was the prosecutor. I know that I heard it.”
Also, Talauna’s advocate at the Crime Victim Advocacy Office told her of a previous meeting that Al Weinnig had with the prosecutor early in the investigation, followed by what she has explained as lack of communication and apparent stalling. She would eventually find out that investigators had not sent the evidence in her aunt’s case out for testing until 25 days after Yvonne’s death.
Yvonne’s sister and Talauna’s mother, Cheryl, went to get medical records from the Thurston County Coroner’s Office that Friday after Yvonne’s death, and she brought up the lack of communication.
“The Coroner specifically told my mom, ‘I’m sorry information isn’t getting relayed to you’ […] He promised my mom, ‘Before we release the body, we’ll contact you,’ […] Two hours after my mom left, they released the body to my aunt […] They are such liars […] That Friday [Warnock] said they gave the evidence to the detectives.
There was another meeting […] around the 21 of August and they hadn’t even collected evidence yet according to the detectives […] They said they were gonna collect it that day and send it out and try to get it expedited, then it was on [the next] Monday they said they still hadn’t sent it out […] And they’re saying it’s gonna take six months to get back […] It’s just to that point right now that it’s apparent they’re not going to do anything.”
So many details of the case have left Talauna feeling unrepresented in the proceedings and, at times, targeted. Inconsistency and lack of understanding from city officials kept coming up in our conversation, like a knife wound that could not be explained or remembered by the coroner, but that Talauna vividly remembers from when she laid with Yvonne in the hospital. There was also a question of Yvonne’s shoes being off, and the lack of any obvious theft.
“When we went to the City Council Meeting, [City Manager] Steve Hall, he’s like […] ‘Tell me a little bit about your aunt.’ […] Why do you want to know now? […] They should know everything about her. […]
I even asked the coroner […] I said what about the knife wound on her leg. He’s like, well what one? […] If you did an autopsy you’d know what I was talking about […] I said so when did she take her shoes off before or after she took a piss? […] Her wallet and everything was still there […]
The nurse at the hospital, we had to console her […] this nurse is shook […] they’ve had to have grief counseling since then [as shown by the medical records] […] I said, “Was my aunt raped?” […] based on the medical records you could tell […] they were responding to [sexual assault], the tests they ordered, the things they wanted […] [the police] still to this day say she wasn’t sexually assaulted […] They’re still pissing on our leg and trying to tell us its raining.”
Trouble With The Prosecutor
Talauna became more convinced that there was another incentive for the justice department’s response, or non-response, to Yvonne’s death, including the Nov. 6 election that will see incumbent county prosecutor Jon Tunheim face Victor Minjares, his first challenger after two term elections.
“There are some civil violations going on here […] Coroner’s being puppeted by the prosecutor because he doesn’t have an election at stake […]
The Olympian contacted me […] Then why haven’t the police called me? […] I think [Tunheim] he’s just hoping it’s so quiet until the election’s over […] that he won’t have to address it.”
A report by the National Center for State Courts in June 2017 found many complaints and problems with the functions of the office, including unnecessarily long jail time for defendants and disproportionately high jail population. The entire report is available online, here.
Tunheim, in an interview with local news site Little Hollywood, responded to the report: “There’s been a cultural issue with our Superior Court for a while now – nobody is holding anybody else accountable.”
Demanding an inquest for Yvonne’s case (which makes sure a jury deliberates on the investigation) is a priority of the campaign. The process to get an inquest must go through the Coroner’s Office, and although City Council can not authorize an inquest, they can support it. The Coroner’s Office has told Talauna an inquest is not possible until toxicology tests are complete, which she said is frustrating when various departments have told her they do not know when they will finish those tests.
Since Tunheim has not made a statement about Yvonne’s case, The Justice For Yvonne campaign has planned a protest at the Thurston County Courthouse for Oct. 16. The event page proposes the protest as a way of holding Tunheim and the city of Olympia accountable for their silence about Yvonne ahead of the upcoming election.
Alleged Targeting & Unusual Arrests
Talauna also described how the police seemed to be watching posts on the family’s social media. One of Yvonne’s sisters posted about the case on Facebook, describing some of the details and asking how this could happen. Soon, the post changed, saying to be patient while police do their jobs, and other posts from family had disappeared altogether.
“All of a sudden my aunt’s post was changed […] Her kids stuff is off, and her stuff is off […] When my mom was there with the coroner, the coroner was like […] ‘You need to watch what you post on Facebook’, told my mom that. Why are you worried about Facebook when you need to be worried about what happened to my aunt? […] That’s when we started the Facebook group and stuff, and that’s when all hell broke loose in my life.”
As there continued to be no movement on the case, Talauna organized a march to City Hall. A string of arrests suddenly displaced her from her family and community over charges that the courts would drop days after. Her ex-husband alleged custodial interference. What could have been a run-of-the-mill experience in parental disputes over guardianship left Talauna with the impression that the justice system targeted her.
When Talauna suspected her son was at her ex-husband’s home against orders in her parenting plan, she called Thurston County Sheriff’s Department (TCSD), who told her she would have to call OPD to get help. She said an OPD officer promised her if they found her son with her ex-husband, they would arrest him. When no further word came, she went to her son’s football practice the next day and once again called the police to help her, but when police said they would not let her take her son home, she phoned a local organizer.
“I was on the phone […] I said […] ‘They’re really tripping, they’re not giving me my son,’ and [an OPD officer] says, ‘What group are you working with?’.. I said, ‘Are you talking about my aunt’s death?’ […] That’s when he said, ‘We’re not all bad,’ basically, ‘Some of us want to help.’”
Eventually officers told Talauna that Thurston County courts granted her ex a protective order prohibiting Talauna from contact with her kids, which she would later find out he achieved by allegedly lying on the paperwork about previous court orders. She left without her son. At her court date on Aug. 29, her ex asked for a continuance, and the judge granted it. In the meantime the judge amended the order so Talauna can contact her ex about the kid’s school-related issues. Despite this amendment, TCSD arrested Talauna in front of her daughter on Sept. 2 at her place of business for alleged violation of the order via a text message exchange discussing school supplies. When she explained the amendment, TCSD told her if she could contact her lawyer to explain, she could avoid arrest. So she got her lawyer on the phone with Reynolds.
“[Reynolds] said ‘Well, I don’t know, its not up to me to determine, I gotta give the prosecutor a call,’ my attorney says great […] [Reynolds] hangs up the phone with my attorney, and goes, ‘I thought I’d humor you.’ I said so you’re taking me to jail anyway? He said, ‘Yeah.’ And starts laughing[…] I called my attorney right back and put him on speaker […] [Reynolds] says, ‘Oh ma’am, get off the phone’ […] I said you have no reason to arrest me, I have committed no crime.”
She and her lawyer insisted Reynolds call the prosecutor to discuss the restraining order, and he did, but he does not ask about the amendment, only whether the order exists. So the Deputy arrested Talauna.
“At the end of the day he takes me into custody […] He’s patting me, I said ‘Don’t touch me[…] I want a female officer[…] I don’t trust you at this point, you just lied to me in front of my daughter, said I wasn’t going to go jail[…] To me it seems like you’re here for something else different and I don’t feel comfortable.’ [Reynolds responds] ‘When we hire a female cop we’ll call you .’[…]
He was gonna make my daughter walk home, I said you’re not gonna make my 15 year old daughter walk home through downtown Olympia, especially after what just happened to my aunt, are you kidding me?”
Her daughter rode with Talauna in the back of the cop car, and recorded on her phone until the police dropped her off at home.
“As soon as [Reynolds] closed that door [after her daughter left], he started talking shit again[…] He was up there laughing[…] I’m like what is so funny?[…] In fact I’m very uncomfortable right now[…] Anyway we get there, they take me into booking[…] Everyone’s calling trying to get me out of jail or whatever, but they won’t, ‘cause its Labor Day weekend[…] One officer walks up to me and goes, ‘You’re gonna have a miserable stay here,’[…] I said ‘Excuse me?’[…] I said ‘What do you mean?’[…] Then [another officer] goes, ‘We’re not all bad.’ I said, ‘You know, you have a job to do, but I really shouldn’t be here, I should be at home with my kids right now’[…] [the officer] said, ‘I get it, just like you don’t want to be lumped in a group, we don’t want to be lumped into a group.’ I said ‘Whatever’s getting you to tell me this, some fucked up shits about to happen, obviously, and that’s not cool.”
Talauna had an injury at the time of her arrest, and she was walking on crutches which police did not allow her to take. Officers told her it was against protocol for them to handcuff her in the front despite her trouble walking. Talauna said the police would also not accommodate her medical needs in jail even after a nurse explained. She did not feel that the department was respecting all of her rights.
“I should be having surgery, I’m severely injured[…] They didn’t give me no ice […] No pillow, no blankets, nothing […] They wouldn’t let me make a phone call […] They wouldn’t let me do shit.”
She was in jail until she had court the following Tuesday, and the judge released her on personal recognizance. The next day, Sept. 5, in the court hearing about her ex’s custodial petition, by preponderance of the evidence the petition was denied. So Talauna went to pick up her son, with all her court paperwork and parenting plan documents in hand, and her ex refused, then called the cops. TCSD arrested Talauna again on felony charges of violating a restraining order.
“They get there[…] [an officer] takes the paperwork out of my hands […] He finally says, ‘Ma’am can you get out of the car.’ For what? ‘I’m gonna have to detain you’ […] I said, ‘I’m not getting out of nowhere […] I’m not a flight risk, look at my leg’ […] I get arrested again. This is the day before the protest. This time for really no reason. I have everything in my hand […] They knew it wasn’t true because I had my parenting plan, I had everything in my hand.”
She was not out of jail until after the march to City Hall that she helped plan, “Make Some Noise For Yvonne McDonald”.
“I’m in a situation now where they’ve let him screw me over so bad, and my daughter[…] I don’t trust them.. Since all this has gone on [my ex] he’s changed medical insurance, he’s changed child support, he’s changed all this stuff and he’s never had legal custody of my kids, and to me the only way you can do that is with help from somebody.”
She then found out that her ex had gone to her daughter’s school grounds, which the parenting plan also does not permit. She called and tried to have him arrested, saying she had verified copies of the no-contact-order against him, but she says police would not accept it.
“Still won’t arrest him[…] But I get arrested an hour after I go to court? With my evidence in my hand? Yeah, something’s fishy with that.[…]
I feel like they definitely are targeting me[…] I was basically calling them a liar and calling them out and I think they basically wanted me to back off the case ‘cause they weren’t doing anything. […]
And I thought maybe it was because the protest was coming up and I’d just put something online […] And then I got arrested […] Now since then, those felony charges, they did get dismissed […] The prosecutor sent me a letter […] They said ‘It would be an injustice to charge Miss Reed criminally.’ We know this. But he only used those words because of what I’m fighting, because of Justice for Yvonne […] It’s, I’m gonna make myself look like im not targeting the dead woman’s niece. […]
I’ve never experienced so much bias. I know I’m black. […] I’ve never had to deal with any of this and to get it from the police, it’s horrible […] I wasn’t raised to ever pull that card out […] My grandma always told me if you don’t like somebody, you don’t let them know […] We have a right to due process in this instance […] I know good damn well if that detective’s aunt was found […] it’d be taken differently.”
Next Steps
Talauna owns a local business, a wig and hair accessories store. As she has sought justice for her aunt, she also seeks a secure future for those still alive. She shared how her business has made her feel more connected to the community even as she has had to close shop so often in the past couple months. She hopes her connections and her community can keep getting stronger.
“My mind is constantly going in trying to figure out how to make things better for my kids[…] We had this conversation before [Yvonne] passed, she said ‘Talauna, thank you for making education a priority for your kids.’[…]
It’s been a struggle, especially this last month[…] I feel like I’m a deeper part of the community[…] it’s like, we’re a part of this community too. Why doesn’t my aunts life matter, you know?”
This circumstance has changed Talauna and her family’s life. She and her mother plan to continue working towards a better, safer, more educated future for their community.
“The violence that’s going on against people, it’s so scary […] Shame on me for not keeping up with it, you know what I mean? Being so unaware, I didn’t even know the election was going on […] I want us to be together on this […] To stay consistently vocal about it, but then to know what to ask. […]
It has changed my mom’s outlook […] She said to me, ‘I have a purpose now […] I want to get up and have the same fight, I want to do that every day for the rest of my life’ […]
I want to open a resource center […] I’m talking legal advice. […] It’s always better if you have representation […] Whatever class of minority you are, I want the platform to be bigger as far as media goes […] There should be a bulletin board […] If there’s a murder or something, let that person’s face be sitting there […] Maybe if I ever get rich in my life that’s what I’ll buy, ‘cause people need to know […] They feel safe ‘cause the police are making them feel like nothing bad happened.”
She is excited by the community she has found through her campaign for justice. As the protest at the Prosecutor’s office approaches, she said she is grateful for the events as opportunities to get information out, to demand answers, and also to come together to share resources, food, and conversation.
“I didn’t realize so many people cared in this community about stuff like this. It was to me eye-opening […] A lot of people cared, reached out who wouldn’t think were paying attention to something like this[…] Just different groups, classes of people[…] It’s just the reality people are separated by that[…] I can’t say enough about the community[…] I don’t know how I would’ve got through this[…] I have people I can at least call and say I’m worried […] I wanna see the community reach more members of the community, be bigger […]
It’s just fun to interact with people and smile with people in the midst of all this horrible stuff.”
There was a memorial and repass for Yvonne on Sept. 29, and when we spoke, Talauna was still preparing for it.
“Yvonne loved gold […] I’d have her a solid gold urn, everything[…] She gives all the little girls their first gold hoop earrings […] She didn’t live lavishly[…] But if I could give her a whole gold memorial, I would. […] I try to be as celebratory as possible[…] I grieve all the time so I don’t have to wait for this […] I’m excited to give her her day.”
A note on edits: The web version of this article has been edited to correctly spell names, and to trim a quote for clarity.
