Guerneville Woman Found Dead 2 Days After Deputies Checked on Her is Identified

By Bay City News Service

The Sonoma County coroner's office has identified the woman who was found dead in her small trailer in Guerneville on Sunday as 70-year-old Ranae Lyla Bunch.

County sheriff's deputies and Russian River Fire Protection District paramedics arrived at the trailer on Drake Road around 5:10 a.m. last Friday after someone who was having trouble breathing called 911, sheriff's Lt. Steve Brown said.

Deputies knocked on the door, checked the outside of the trailer and broke a window, Brown said. They noticed a television was on and there was a phone on the bed, he said.

The deputies again tried to make verbal contact but received no reply and were unable to see anyone inside when they looked through a window, Brown said.

The deputies believed no one was inside and they left a note advising the occupant to contact them about the damage from the broken window, Brown said. The deputies then left the scene.

Steve Baxman, operations officer for the Russian River Fire Protection District, said the paramedics couldn't find the trailer until sheriff's deputies found the address of the 911 caller by checking trailers' license plates in the area and matching it to the name of the caller.

The caller said she lives in space No. 1, Baxman said.

Baxman said he leaned into the broken window and didn't see anyone on the bed despite moving the covers around. Baxman said a light and the television were on in the bedroom.

"If I see a body, I break down the door. If not, I don't have the right to do that," Baxman said.

"It's sad. We did the best we could do under the circumstances," he said.

Bunch's daughter Serena Bunch, 53, said she was trying to contact her mother over the weekend. She said her mother suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and uses oxygen to breathe.

Bunch said she went to the trailer around 1 p.m. Sunday and found her mother "collapsed into a small ball on the floor beside the bed."

The television and light in the trailer were on, and her mother's oxygen machine was still running, she said. Bunch's daughter-in-law, who went to the trailer with her, called 911, Bunch said.

"I don't know why they didn't see her. She was right there," Serena said. "The broken window was two feet from her."

Deputies on Sunday afternoon went back to the trailer, where Serena and several neighbors were upset that the deputies left a note on the broken window but did not go inside to check on the occupant, Brown said.

"She called for help," Serena Bunch said. "They should have broken the door down. They could easily have popped the lock. It's not a solid front door. Someone calls for help and you look in and leave."

Bunch said the trailer is 18 feet long.

She said her mother was in ill health most of her life.

"She was disabled and lived on a small fixed income. She was a cantankerous woman, but she was passionate about animals. She once raised dogs and did dog grooming in Southern California," she said.

Serena said she is studying administration of justice at Santa Rosa Junior College, and works as a "handy gal" doing fix-it projects.

"I learned that 'exigent circumstances' gives police a right to break in," she said.

Brown said the coroner's office is investigating the death and an internal investigation will address whether proper policy and procedures were followed in the initial call.

Copyright © 2013 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.

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