PORT ANGELES — The fathers of two men shot to death in June by Patrick Drum of Sequim expressed varying degrees of emotion last week over Drum’s admission in Clallam County Superior Court that he killed their sons.
Judge George L. Wood told Drum, 34, at his guilty-plea hearing Thursday that each count of aggravated murder carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.
Drum pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the June shooting deaths of Jerry W. Ray, 56, of Port Angeles and Gary L. Blanton Jr., 28, of Sequim, as well as one count of aggravated burglary and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm.
A trial had been set for Oct. 22.
No plea bargain had been offered.
“I do feel justice has been served,” Paul Ray, the father of Jerry Ray, 56, said Friday.
“That’s what I believe, as long as he stays off the street. That satisfies me. He has to pay for his crime.”
Life has been hard for Ray, 84, since he found his son’s bullet-riddled body in the home the two shared in Port Angeles, he said.
“I have to live with it,” he said.
“It’s hard to do because he was my right-hand man.
“Whenever I needed anything done, he would do it — to go somewhere, if I had an appointment to the doctor, whatever I had to do, he would take me wherever I needed to go.”
Life in prison
Gary L. Blanton, the father of Gary L. Blanton Jr., 28, Drum’s housemate, said Friday he wanted to be sure Drum spent the rest of his life in prison.
“I don’t feel anything about it,” he said Friday of Drum’s guilty plea.
“My son’s gone; he’s dead. What can I do? It’s a done deal.”
Drum told county Prosecutor Deb Kelly in a letter last week that he never wants to get out of prison.
“I would like a court date established so that I may plea guilty,” Drum, a former Peninsula College student, told Kelly in a neatly printed letter dated Aug. 26.
It was sent from “Suite 11” at the Clallam County jail and received by Kelly’s office Tuesday.
“I would actually prefer a life sentence over, say, a 30-to-50-year sentence due to the fact that lifers get more of their earned money,” he wrote.
Lifer pay
But state Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said a prison inmate’s sentence has nothing to do with how much pay or what job he or she receives.
“Some people assume lifers get better-paying jobs,” Lewis said Saturday.
“You are not going to get a preferred job just because you are getting a life sentence.”
Once sentenced, Drum will be transferred to the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton for processing and a determination of where he will serve his sentence.
Sentencing Sept. 13
At Drum’s court hearing, Wood set a sentencing hearing for 9 a.m. Sept. 13.
Each count of aggravated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole, Wood said.
Authorities say Drum freely admitted to killing Ray and Blanton — telling them he was targeting convicted sex offenders — and that he intended to go after a third convicted sex offender in Quilcene before he was caught in Agnew after a helicopter-aided manhunt that followed the discovery of the bodies of Ray and Blanton on June 3.
Drum had intended to continue killing convicted sex offenders “as long as he could until he was stopped by law enforcement,” Kelly said at Drum’s first court appearance June 4.
Drum said at the hearing Thursday that it would be “a waste of taxpayer money” if he goes to trial.
“Why spend $2 million for something I can take care of today?”
Drum offered to plead guilty without a plea deal, said his court-appointed lawyer, Karen Unger of Port Angeles.
Drum, a convicted felon who shot Blanton and Ray multiple times, was not allowed to own a gun.
County Sheriff Bill Benedict said Friday that authorities have identified who owned the firearm.
Drum has said he stole it, Benedict said.
“That may prevent us from prosecuting the gun,” he said.
Drum also pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of aggravated burglary, Kelly said Friday.
“His only possible sentence is life without parole,” she said.
“Anything else doesn’t matter.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.