By Emily Heffter, The Seattle Times –
SEATTLE — Investigators in Grays Harbor County, Wash., are searching for a 34-year-old man in connection with Friday’s courthouse attack in Montesano that left a judge and sheriff’s deputy wounded.
Authorities believe the suspect, Steven Daniel Kravetz, called his mother after the attack and she picked him up a short distance from the courthouse.
The Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Department on Saturday released photos of Kravetz and his mother, Roberta L. Dougherty, 58.
She picked him up at 3 p.m. and gave him a ride, possibly to the Olympia area, Undersheriff Rick Scott said. They left Montesano in a silver Ford Focus with Washington plate AEX8372.
Investigators don’t know where Kravetz lives, though his mother has an Olympia-area Post Office box, Scott said.
The Sheriff’s Department said Deputy Polly Davin, responding to a report of a suspicious man, confronted a well-dressed man inside the courthouse just after noon Friday. The man gave his name as “Michael Thomas,” Scott said.
During an ensuing struggle, Davin was stabbed and shot with her own handgun. Superior Court Judge David Edwards was stabbed when he intervened, according to the sheriff’s office.
The attacker ran from the courthouse with the deputy’s handgun, Scott said.
Both Edwards, 63, and Davin, 45, were treated at Grays Harbor Community Hospital and released on Friday night.
About 100 officers from across the region have been involved in the manhunt, which locked down the town of 4,000.
Kravetz lived in the county between 2005 and 2007, when officers issued a warrant for Kravetz’s arrest for what Scott called a “domestic violence situation.”
He has 2008 felony convictions in Lewis County for third-degree assault with a weapon and making a false statement to a public servant, according to court records. In that incident, he was arrested after he refused to cooperate with police after being kicked out of a Centralia public library, said Centralia police Sgt. Stacy Denham.
Denham said Kravetz got into an argument with another library patron. Kravetz tried to evade officers, then lied to them and said his name was David Martin Anderson, Denham said.
Officers used a Taser on him when he fought arrest, Denham said.
Officers learned his real name from his mother, who was with him at the library, and discovered a warrant was out for his arrest in Montesano. They also found part of a pair of scissors in Kravetz’s pocket, he said.
Dougherty, who is also known as Roberta St. George, doesn’t appear to have a criminal history in Washington, according to court records.
“We don’t know what her knowledge or involvement is” in Friday’s attack, Undersheriff Scott said, adding: “We’re concerned for her welfare. We don’t know what his mental, emotional state was following the incident.”
Investigators don’t know why Kravetz was at the courthouse Friday, but they said he got there on a transit bus from Thurston County.
