SK dealt with shocking murder, discovery in 2009

Within two short months last year, South Kitsap residents grappled with the horrifying murder of a Manchester woman and the unsettling discovery of human remains on a construction site.

On April 5, 2009, Ruby Andrews, 87, was found stabbed to death in the bathroom of her Puget Drive East home around 4:30 p.m. Just hours later, a teen-age neighbor who used to mow her lawn was arrested and charged with her murder.

Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office investigators believe that Daniel J. Mustard, now 18, knocked on Andrews’ door when she was home alone and said he was doing a survey. Andrews invited Mustard inside and offered him some water.

Once in the house, Mustard demanded money of Andrews, and after a violent struggle, stabbed her repeatedly. Before leaving Andrews in her bathroom, he reportedly took photos of her dead body with his cell phone that he later showed to friends.

Shortly thereafter, Andrews was discovered by her husband and son, and deputies responded to the scene. Shortly before 7 p.m., the deputies contacted Mustard, who reportedly had blood on his shoe, a knife in his pocket and was acting “increasingly nervous.”

Mustard was arrested and booked into the Kitsap County Juvenile Detention Center. By his 18th birthday the following month, Mustard had been moved to the Kitsap County Jail and charged as an adult with aggravated first-degree murder.

As of this week, Mustard remains in custody under $1 million bail awaiting trial, which had been scheduled for later this month.

In October of last year, Mustard’s defense attorney Bryan Hershman announced he would be entering a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity” for his client, and that the trial date of Jan. 25 seemed “optimistic.”

As of last month, Mustard’s trial was scheduled for April 15, 2010.

Two months after Andrews’ murder, workers found the remains of a human foot at a construction site on Harold Drive, just west of the Puerta Vallarta restaurant on Lund Avenue.

At first believing they found an empty and discarded shoe, and the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office said the workers soon realized there were bones and tissue inside it and called police.

After searching the surrounding site with dogs and heavy equipment, investigators found more human bones buried nearby that had been wrapped in a plastic tarp and tied with electrical wire. Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Scott Wilson said another item was found along with the remains that lead investigators to believe the victim’s death was homicide, but no other details were provided.

The remains were sent to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, which determined that the victim had been a “Hispanic male in his late teens or early 20s.”

Last month, Wilson said the case was still open and investigators had not identified the victim nor uncovered any more information.

A third incident that shocked many in the community last year was resolved.

Thomas Henry, a former paraeducator with South Kitsap High School’s Career and Technical Education Department, was charged Feb. 20 with sexual misconduct in the second-degree after an alleged affair with a teen-age girl was uncovered.

Henry was immediately placed on administrative leave from his job at the high school, and if convicted of the crime, he would have been required to register as a sex offender.

However, Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Hull said last May the sexual misconduct charge against Henry was reduced to a gross misdemeanor.

Hull said Henry entered into a “pre-trial deferment agreement” and if he abides by the code of conduct stipulated in the contract for two years, the case will be dismissed.

If the case is dismissed at that time, Hull said Henry will not be required to register as a sex offender.

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