Jason E. Bush, suspected in the slayings of a transient in Wenatchee in 1997 and of two Arizona residents this year, is also a suspect in the 1997 killing of Jonathan Bumstead of East Wenatchee, say officials with Douglas County and the city of Wenatchee.
Bumstead’s body was found, shot in the back and head, in the Douglas Creek area of Palisades on Sept. 21, 1997. He was 18.
Bush, 34, has ties to the Aryan Nations white-supremacist movement, which may be a factor in the Bumstead case, authorities said.
Drugs had long been suspected as the motive in the killing but, at a news conference called Monday afternoon by Douglas County sheriff’s deputies and Wenatchee police, no motive was given. Sheriff Harvey Gjesdal, whose office is handling the investigation, referred questions about motive to an affidavit of probable cause that was written by Douglas County Detective Steve Groseclose and given to Prosecutor Steve Clem.
Clem, contacted by telephone, said the document will not be a public record until it is filed with the county clerk’s office. He said he had not yet had time to read the affidavit and that it may not be filed until next week.
Asked to read the report and see if a motive was mentioned, Clem took time to read, then said, “It’s difficult to really tell clearly what the motive is. The statements are all inferences. It has something to do with Jason Bush’s involvement in Aryan Nations activities and Jonathan Bumstead’s involvement or affinity for Aryan nations stuff.”
The possible connection of Bush to the Bumstead case came as Wenatchee police were investigating Bush as a suspect in the 1997 slaying of Hector Manuel Lopez Partida, 29. Lopez was stabbed seven times July 24, 1997, while sleeping near the 700 block of South Wenatchee Avenue.
Confidential informants in that case told Wenatchee detectives that they knew about Bush’s involvement in the Bumstead case. Detectives said that the confidential informants agreed to talk now because Bush is in jail awaiting prosecution on other murder charges. Previously, the informants said, they feared for their safety and that of their families if they talked about the Bumstead murder.
Among the confidential informants was a person who said he or she was present at both the Lopez and the Bumstead murders, and that Bush said after the murder that Bumstead was killed “because he was a traitor to the race,” said Wenatchee Detective John Kruse. Another informant was present at only the Bumstead murder, he said.
Groseclose said Bush and Bumstead were friends but declined to be more specific.
The detectives said the confidential informants said they had no warning ahead of time that the murders would take place and that they were traumatized by them. Both informants now live out of state.
Kruse said three other confidential informants were involved. One said Bush mentioned that he committed both the Lopez and the Bumstead murders. Another said Bush talked about killing two people in the Wenatchee area. And a third said that Bush confessed to the Lopez murder.
Bush is in jail in Pima County, Ariz., on murder charges unrelated to the Wenatchee crimes. His attorney, Christian Kimminau declined to comment.
Bush was arrested in June as a suspect in a May 30 double slaying in Arivaca, Ariz., in Pima County, with two other suspects — Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42. All have been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and other charges, said Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz.
The three are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter. Their motive was financial, Dupnik has said.
About the same time as the Arizona murders, Wenatchee police sent out a law-enforcement bulletin naming Bush as a suspect in the Lopez case. That link came from DNA evidence.
In 1997, police found a shirt near the Lopez crime scene. That evidence was reprocessed recently to take advantage of new technology. Blood on the shirt came from Lopez, police said, and DNA on the shirt was linked to Bush. His DNA had been entered into a nationwide DNA data bank when he was incarcerated for earlier property crimes.
Police have said Bush has ties to anti-immigration and white-supremacist groups. The two Arizona homicide victims and Partida are Hispanic. Wenatchee police say they believe the Wenatchee killing of Lopez was racially motivated.
A police report by Kruse, filed in Chelan County Superior Court, said, “I have learned Bush has had long-standing ties to Aryan Nations groups that commonly believe in white superiority over other races and have been known to be violent towards non-white races. He espoused these beliefs to associates in Wenatchee in 1997.”
An informant told Kruse “that in the summer or fall of 1997 Bush told him/her that he and another man killed a man because he was a ‘Mexican,’ ” Kruse’s affidavit said.
Bumstead’s father, Jon Bumstead of East Wenatchee, was at the Monday press conference and thanked officers for their efforts in finding a suspect in his son’s case.
“Until we get an arrest, this is great that this is happening, but it’s not done,” he said.
Bumstead said his wife, Frieda, was too upset by the news about an arrest to attend the press conference. He said they may speak about their feelings at a later time.
The Bumsteads have said over the years that their son had a drug problem and that they thought he was killed because of it. They have written numerous letters to The Safety Valve at The Wenatchee World, asking that their son’s case not be forgotten, and they have spoken to civic groups about the dangers of drugs.
SOURCE: Wenatchee World
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