Flags at state buildings will be lowered to half-staff today to honor a Marine Corps lance corporal from Tacoma who was killed last week in Afghanistan.

Ramon Kaipat, 22, died April 11 during combat operations in the Helmand province. He was a rifleman assigned to 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif. It was his second combat deployment.

Kaipat is the sixth U.S. service member with ties to Washington state to die in Afghanistan this year.

Kaipat graduated from Mount Tahoma High School in 2007 and enlisted the following year.

Court filings are revealing additional details today in a grisly murder-dismemberment last week in a downtown Tacoma home.

Those court papers allege that John Jones, who was charged with murder in the case Monday, not only removed the victim’s legs and head with a handsaw, but also one arm.

Jones, prosecutors theorize, was trying to cut 54-year-old Wayne Williams into small enough parts that he could load the body into multiple garbage sacks and carry them out of his home for disposal.

Before he finished the job, however, Williams’ decaying body began to smell, and Jones’ mother called police. …

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A truck driver has died after an accident, apparently while he was making a delivery to Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co. on Portland Avenue.

Simpson Tacoma Kraft has released this statement:

There was an accident yesterday afternoon involving a contractor’s driver making a delivery to the mill.  He was transported to a local hospital and we were informed he passed away.

We are shocked and saddened by this accident and extend our deepest sympathies to the driver’s family, loved ones and colleagues.

Simpson Tacoma Kraft employees rendered assistance when they found the driver in distress, and the fire department was also

…

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A 17-year-old boy who drowned in Lake Tapps over the weekend went underwater while trying to retrieve a football, Pierce County sheriff’s officials said today.

Robert L. Harris of Federal Way was at the park for a family picnic Saturday. When he didn’t resurface about 5:45 p.m., people began yelling for help and caught the attention of two deputies working nearby.

The deputies took a sheriff’s boat out to the spot where Harris was last seen and dropped a buoy before returning to shore to get the dive team.

A diver found the teen about 6:30 p.m. His body was …

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A teenage boy in Edgewood stabbed his own father to death Friday night, attempting to protect his uncle from an attack, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Mike Blair said the 17-year-old boy was with his teenage cousin and uncle at a residence in the 800 block of 109th Ave. Ct. E. Edgewood, when his father unexpectedly arrived shortly after 10 p.m. and began fighting with the uncle outside in the driveway.

“There were indicators that the father came to do harm to the family,” Blair said. “The son went out to protect his uncle …

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The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled that a man found in the bed of a burning pickup truck Wednesday in Bonney Lake committed suicide.

Bonney Lake police spokesman Daron Wolschleger said the man has been identified as the registered owner of the burned-up truck. The Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet released his name.

East Pierce Fire & Rescue crews were called after bystanders heard several loud explosions, then saw the truck engulfed in flames about noon Wednesday. The truck was parked in the driveway of a home in the 8400 block of 181st Avenue …

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Lewis County sheriff’s detectives are investigating the discovery of human skeletal remains found Thursday evening  just off a highway near Morton.

The Sheriff’s Office reported the gender and age of the victim as well as how long the person had been dead were not yet known. The remains will be sent to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office for a forensic pathologist to examine them.

A man called 911 about 5:30 p.m. Thursday to report the remains. He had pulled off the road to take a break. When he got out of his car, he noticed the human skeletal remains …

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A 51-year-old Auburn woman was killed early this morning in a car crash on Interstate 5 in Tacoma.

Toni M. Spaulding was driving a 1998 Honda Passport southbound on I-5 at South 48th Street when the vehicle left the roadway to the right and struck a dirt embankment just before 1 a.m., the Washington State Patrol said.

“After striking the dirt embankment the vehicle was vaulted into the air and struck the 48th Street overpass,” a news release from the State Patrol states.

Spaulding was pronounced dead at the scene. It is unknown if alcohol or drugs were a factor …

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