Sacred games by Seth Truscott

VALLEY RECORD SNOQUALMIE

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No way out

Search for suspected killer ends with death inside Rattlesnake Ridge bunker BY SETH TRUSCOTT AND CAROL LADWIG

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Valley Record Staff

The man who police say shot his family, torched his home and fled to an underground lair on Rattlesnake Ridge, is dead. When SWAT teams blasted their way inside North Bend resident Peter A. Keller’s log-built bunker on Saturday morning, April 28, they found the suspect’s body, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot. At a press conference near the

Personal triumph: Mount Si track athletes grow in skill Page 11

PETER KELLER Murder suspect

Rattlesnake Ridge trailhead, King County Sheriff Steve Strachan praised the detective work and citizen response that led up to a siege of Keller’s bunker. Unable to fathom Keller’s motives, the sheriff hoped the standoff would have ended with-

out another death. “To try to apply some sort of rational reason is futile,” Strachan said. SEE BUNKER SIEGE, 2

Pupils battle with book knowledge in annual showdown Page 7

INDEX OPINION 5 8 LEGALS 9 CALENDAR ON THE SCANNER 10 14 OBITUARIES 17-18 CLASSIFIEDS

Vol. 98, No. 49

Above, SWAT teams blasted their way into murder suspect Peter A. Keller’s underground bunker last weekend, after tips and detective work led to the Rattlesnake Ridge lair. Right, infrared cameras on a sheriff’s helicopter show police surrounding the hideout Friday. Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo

Marvin Kempf, right, with Snoqualmie Tribal Elder Anita Christiansen, center, and advisor Stephen Gomes, hold up replicas of a 13,000-yearold set of Sla-hal pieces, which will be discussed at a 60-tribe gathering at Seattle Pacific University. The gathering will be the first of so many tribes in more than a century. Later this year, Snoqualmie Casino will develop a cultural display on the game.

Sacred games Tribal leaders speak out on continental connection BY CAROL LADWIG Staff Reporter

Whatever other titles he may hold, Marvin Kempf, a hereditary chief of the Snoqualmie Tribe, and the son of Snoqualmie Princess Roslyn Harvey Kempf, is a born storyteller. Creation, the monster of the mountain, and battling giants, are all easilyrecalled legends from his culture, and ones he loves to share. “I was thinking about another story,” he announced over lunch last Friday. It’s a story he learned from his elders, when he asked why his own people didn’t have beautiful creation tales like the Jewish tradition. “They laughed and said ‘oh, that’s a young tribe,’” he said. SEE SLA-HAL, 5

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Carnation woman reported missing

Then they told him their own story. “The supreme being, the creator, was so beautiful, he never spoke… but when words came out, they were like song. He lifted his head into nothingness, and sang us into creation,” Kempf said. His favorite story right now, though, is about a people whose history and culture extends back 13,000 years, farther than Judaism, farther than Chinese culture. The people are his own, linked from coast to coast and from the top to the bottom of North America. The best part of the story? It’s completely true, with physical evidence to prove it. A 13,000 year-old pair of sticks carved from mammoth bone, and a large sharp stone knife, or Clovis point, found near Wenatchee several years ago, are the proof, and the link to tribes all over the country, he says. The pieces are not sled runners, as archeologists originally supposed, but components of the “stick game,” called Sla-hal in the Snoqualmie tribe, but with different names in every part of the country where tribes still play it today. The game spread, as the tribe did, through intermarriage, across the United States. People still play it

Carnation resident Lorene F. Bardy, 53, is being sought as a missing and possibly endangered person by the King County Sheriff’s Office. Bardy has reportedly not been seen since the early morning hours of Thursday, April 26, at her home in the 29200 block of Northeast 52nd Street. She has life-threatening health issues and is in need of medications that are still at her home. Bardy is described as five feet, seven inches tall, 125 pounds, with brown-blonde hair and blue eyes. She has pierced ears and wears corrective lenses. If you have seen Bardy, call the King County Sheriff’s Office at (206) 296-3311 or 911.

Scholarship named for North Bend veteran Joe Crecca

today, following the same set of rules that, as far as anyone knows, have always been used, for 13,000 years. “The anthropologists say you can’t get better continuity than that!” Kempf said. Sla-hal is a combination of song and strategy. More than a game, it was also a source of power and protection, and it was a tool. “It’s called the game of peace,” Kempf said, noting that warring tribes sometimes played the game, thousands on each side joining in power songs, instead of engaging in battle. “The elders said way back when, we used to war with giants, and we would settle disputes with them playing this game,” he added. Sla-hal is also the name of the gathering May 5 that Kemp has organized for some 60 tribes and about 400 people at Seattle Pacific University on Saturday, May 5. This firstof-its-kind event, Kempf says, will be “a family conversation” about not just the game, but the cultural heritage of the people, and the effect this discovery may have. “The families that wrought America are always being told who they are and where they’re from and their identity… by anthropologists, by museums, and they don’t even know what the artifacts are,” Kempf said.

grandfather, Chief Sanawa, and the treaty of Point Elliott, signed in 1855. “This day the Sanawa line is opening up for all the family to speak. And it’s about the importance of all our rel-

atives and family throughout the northwest.” Saturday’s gathering is not open to the public. More information can be found at www.spu.edu/depts/spfc/ happenings/slahal-gathering.

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To promote continuing education after graduation from high school, the Bloomfield High School Class of 1958, Bloomfield, N.J., will award the first annual Joseph Crecca Scholarship Award to a deserving student beginning with the class of 2012. The award will be presented at the Class of 1958 annual luncheon, May 19. Crecca, a North Bend resident, was a U.S. Air Force pilot and Vietnam Give the the gift gift of of Give prisoner of war. financial strength. strength. He graduated from Bloomfield High financial School in 1958. Graduating from Steve Weaver Steve Weaver Steve Weaver Financial Advisor, Eagle Strategies. LLC LLC the Newark College of Engineering Financial Adviser, Eagle Strategies Financial Advisor, Eagle Strategies. LLC Agent, New YorkInvestment Life Insurance Company A Registered Adviser (NCE) as a mechanical engineer, Agent, New8th York Company 11400 SE St, Life SuiteInsurance 300 Agent, York Life Insurance Company Photo Here 11400 SENew 8th St, Suite 300 Crecca served as fighter pilot during Bellevue, WA 98004 Photo Here 11400 SE St, Suite 300 Bellevue, WA8th 98004 Office 425-462-4833 the Vietnam war. On his last mission, Office 425-462-4833 Mobile 425-503-6391 Bellevue, WA 98004 en route to the target, he was shot Mobile 425-503-6391 sweaver@ft.newyorklife.com Office 425-462-4833 or 425-503-6391 sweaver@ft.newyorklife.com down, captured and held as a prisoner sweaver@ft.newyorklife.com © 2011 New York Life Insurance Company, 51 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010 of war at the “Hanoi Hilton” in North © 2011 New York Life Insurance Company, 51 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010 SMRU 00447133CV (Exp. 05/20/13) Vietnam for over six years. Crecca was SMRU 00447133CV (Exp. 05/20/13) repatriated in 1973, at which time he held the rank of Major. AR04112_0511_Give_Gift_Fin_Strgth_4_25x2_75_V3RG.pdf AR04112_0511_Give_Gift_Fin_Strgth_4_25x2_75_V3RG.pdf Crecca has often stated that during his grueling captivity, he realized that it was imperative that he keep his mind busy. He thought back to his high school class of 1958, his teachers and his college years. He said that his teachers “didn’t merely teach me the subject matter, such as mathematics; they taught me • Evening Appts. to think!” His “sincere hope is that our young Americans today will feel Available similar admiration for and receive equally intense inspiration from • New Patients their own teachers.” Welcome On April 2, the Township of Bloomfield read a proclamaOur Wonderful Staff at Kelly R. Garwood DDS tion declaring April 9 as National Former Prisoner of 425.888.0867 War Recognition Day. Crecca was selected by the Bloomfield Hours: Mon & Tue 7am - 6pm and Thurs 7am - 4pm Veterans of Foreign War Post #70 421 Main Ave S, PO Box 372, North Bend, WA 98045 to receive this recognition.

He hopes with this gathering, and the annual events to follow, that he can give his people a voice. “The Sanawa line never got to speak after the treaty,” he said, referring to his great-

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SLA-HAL FROM 1

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Snoqualmie Valley Record • May 2, 2012 • 5

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