Dori: Triple murder convict seeks parole as victim’s daughter relives trauma

Forty years have passed, and Kelley Tarp’s tears still flow.

She was just 13 years old when her father, Loran Dowell, and his coworker, Bob Pierre, were robbed, tied up in the walk-in cooler of SeaTac’s Barn Door Tavern, and then shot in the back of the head.

Today, Tarp relives the pain of that June night in 1980 because their killer – Timothy Pauley – is once again up for parole.

Tarp told The Dori Monson Show that Pauley, 63, will go before the state’s Indeterminate Sentencing Review Board on March 16, seeking release from the state’s Monroe Correctional Complex for the two shootings, and the hanging death of Pierre’s girlfriend, Linda Burford.

Tarp’s mother, Margaret, and cook Sherri Beckham both managed to survive the tragic events at the Barn Door Tavern after being stripped naked, tortured, tied with electrical cord, and left for dead in the tavern’s restroom by Pauley and his accomplice, Scott C. Smith.

It was a crime so savage, Dori recalls, that retired Congressman and former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, a detective assigned to the case four decades ago, once told him it was “one of the most gruesome crimes he’d ever investigated.”

At the time, Dori reminded listeners, King County prosecutors were unable to seek the death penalty against either Pauley or Smith because capital punishment had been ruled unconstitutional in Washington state. Both men were eventually convicted of three counts of first-degree murder.

Despite state Department of Corrections reports that he is a changed man, Pauley “truly scares us,” Tarp told Dori.

“He is not rehabilitated and shows no remorse. … It’s a game to him. It’s appeal, after appeal, after appeal,” she said.

“Having to continue to relive the nightmare isn’t something our family or any other family should have to go through,” she continued while choking back tears. “Our system is broken.”

Tarp blames the system because this is not the first time that she, her surviving mother, and her sister and brother – who were 9 and 4 at the time of the killings – have had to protest Pauley’s attempts at release.

In 2016, they rallied when Pauley sought release. He cited state legislation that allows inmates who committed felonies before 1984 to request parole. His appeal was denied – despite a letter in Pauley’s support written by the board’s now-retired chairperson, Lynn Delano.

Tarp told Dori’s listeners that she is frustrated by reports claiming Pauley “has been doing very, very well” while mentoring other offenders, expressing “extreme remorse” and avoiding any other infractions while behind bars.

She calls her father’s killer “a master of manipulation.”

“It’s ridiculous that we have to continue to plead with this board to see behind all the smoke and mirrors,” she added. “… We’re at the board’s mercy.”

Tarp asked listeners who object to Pauley’s release to write to the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board at P.O. Box 40907, Olympia, WA, 98504 — or email isrb@doc1.wa.gov.

Listen to Dori’s entire interview with Kelley Tarp, whose father was killed during a SeaTac robbery 40 years ago:

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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