A battalion fire chief is accused of strangling his wife to death while he was having an affair with another woman, Washington authorities and multiple news outlets reported.
Kevin West, 49, was arrested March 22 and has since been charged with first-degree murder. West is accused of killing his wife, Marcelle “Marcy” West, on Jan. 8 in Washougal, Clark County deputies said.
His attorney did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for a comment on March 28.
Investigators later learned that, on the same day as his wife’s death, Kevin West had plans to leave his wife for a woman he had been having an on-and-off affair with for the last 20 years, The Oregonian reported from a probable cause affidavit.
He had met the other woman in the early 2000s while she was a volunteer at the fire department and began the affair in 2004, The Columbian reported from the affidavit.
But Kevin West told investigators he could never end his marriage with his wife, saying “I talked about divorce but … there’s no way I could go through with it. Marcy and I had too much together,” the affidavit said, according to The Oregonian.
Yet when investigators searched the couple’s home, they found love letters that Kevin West had written to the woman, The Columbian reported from the affidavit.
“2024 will be our year,” he wrote, according to the affidavit obtained by the news outlet. “We will be together celebrating everyday with love and understanding of what it means for you and I to be together. Our story will ring in the New Year loud for all to hear!”
What happened to Marcy?
Kevin West called 911 at 4:27 a.m. on Jan. 8 and told first responders Marcy West was having a seizure, deputies said.
He said she stopped breathing a short time later. When medics got to their home, they tried to perform life-saving measures, but the 48-year-old woman was pronounced dead at 5:11 a.m., deputies said.
On March 20, the medical examiner released Marcy West’s cause of death as asphyxia with blunt trauma to the neck and ruled her death a homicide, which means she was killed by another human being.
“Intentional asphyxiation is frequently highly violent and takes more than a moment in point of time for the event to lead to death, suggesting the offender repeatedly chooses to continue the assault over a period of time, failing to stop until the victim loses consciousness and dies,” deputies said in a probable cause statement obtained by KOIN.
West was arrested on a first-degree murder constitutive domestic violence, the news outlet reported.
He was being held on a $1.5 million bail but paid 10% and was released, The Oregonian reported.
He worked for the Camas-Washougal Fire Department. The department did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for more information on March 28.
Washougal is a 25-mile drive northeast from Portland, Oregon.
If you are experiencing domestic violence and need someone to talk to, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for support at 1-800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.
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