Witness to trooper's murder guilty of criminal assistance
PORT ORCHARD, Wash. - The only living eyewitness to the cold-blooded murder of a state trooper was found guilty Friday for her actions after the deadly shooting.
Megan Mollet now faces up to 10 years in prison for rendering criminal assistance to the trooper's killer and lying to police about his whereabouts in the crucial hours afterward.
Mollet, 19, was a passenger in Josh Blake's truck the night that Washington State Patrol Trooper Tony Radulescu pulled them over. Blake shot Radulescu as he approached the vehicle, then drove off, leaving the trooper lying dead in the road.
After the murder, Mollet went with Blake to a friend's house, where she stayed when Blake left with others to hide. When police came looking for Blake, they say Mollet lied to them to trip up the manhunt and buy Blake some time.
Mollet contended during the trial that she had to in order to save her own life.
But jurors evidently didn't buy that argument.
On the final day of testimony, the prosecutor showed jurors Mollet's Facebook page, and a racist slogan she scrawled in her jail cell. The prosecutor said both are proof Mollet would do anything to help her friend, including lying to police.
Blake killed himself the day after the trooper's death as law enforcement tracked him down and began to close in on his hiding place, an old decrepit trailer in the woods of South Kitsap.
Six people, including Mollet, were later charged with acting as accomplices to Blake in the hours after Radulescu was shot.
Megan Mollet now faces up to 10 years in prison for rendering criminal assistance to the trooper's killer and lying to police about his whereabouts in the crucial hours afterward.
Mollet, 19, was a passenger in Josh Blake's truck the night that Washington State Patrol Trooper Tony Radulescu pulled them over. Blake shot Radulescu as he approached the vehicle, then drove off, leaving the trooper lying dead in the road.
After the murder, Mollet went with Blake to a friend's house, where she stayed when Blake left with others to hide. When police came looking for Blake, they say Mollet lied to them to trip up the manhunt and buy Blake some time.
Mollet contended during the trial that she had to in order to save her own life.
But jurors evidently didn't buy that argument.
On the final day of testimony, the prosecutor showed jurors Mollet's Facebook page, and a racist slogan she scrawled in her jail cell. The prosecutor said both are proof Mollet would do anything to help her friend, including lying to police.
Blake killed himself the day after the trooper's death as law enforcement tracked him down and began to close in on his hiding place, an old decrepit trailer in the woods of South Kitsap.
Six people, including Mollet, were later charged with acting as accomplices to Blake in the hours after Radulescu was shot.
