PORT ANGELES — A 32-year-old Navy veteran who died of hypothermia two weeks ago at an abandoned industrial site breached security at Group/Air Station Port Angeles about 10 hours before he went missing, the Coast Guard said Thursday.
Lt. Collin Bronson, public affairs officer for Coast Guard District 13 in Seattle, confirmed that Lee D. Renfro of Forest Grove, Ore., entered the base between midnight and 1 a.m. March 28.
Bronson said he did not know how he got on the base on Ediz Hook, how base personnel knew when he set foot on the base, how long he was on the grounds or “why we had to escort him off.”
The gate in the fence at the Coast Guard’s guard shack is controlled from within the base. The area is monitored through a camera, Bronson said, adding that he had no other details.
The fence does not circle the base, but extends only across the entrance.
Not arrested
Lee Renfro was not arrested, although action “involved security and it involved removing him from the facility and it involved us taking him to a relative’s home,” Bronson said.
The Coast Guard is examining “how did it happen, where did this guy come from, what was his involvement with the Coast Guard, how did he get on the base,” Bronson added.
The Coast Guard investigation of the incident includes a review of base security procedures, Bronson added.
The last time his twin brother, Donald Renfro, saw Lee was at about 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. March 28, when he left Donald’s Port Angeles home to take a Sunday walk, said the brothers’ father, Steve Renfro of Forest Grove, Ore., this week.
Lee’s body was discovered at about 6 p.m. March 31 not far from the Waterfront Trail on the fenced, rubble-strewn, 75-acre Rayonier pulp mill site about a quarter-mile from Donald’s home.
Steve said that police told him it appeared that his son slipped and twisted his ankle while walking along the shoreline, falling backward on rocks and breaking four ribs.
He had tried to crawl to safety.
“There was sand on him, and the palms on his hands and his knees were scarred from trying to crawl,” Steve said.
Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher said Lee’s body was found in a jagged bed of broken concrete, 282 feet north of a telephone pole situated about 60 feet east of the Rayonier guard shack.
“He crawled probably 200 yards,” Steve said of his son. “That’s where he ended up at.”
He can’t stop thinking about what his son went through.
In so much pain
“I just think he was probably in so much pain while he laid there,” Lee’s father said.
“Your mind just goes crazy every which way on it.”
Steve said that his son was in good physical condition. He was about 6-feet-1-inch tall and weighed 165 pounds. He had started a dump truck business.
“He was a little depressed,” Steve said, but “not at all” clinically depressed.
“It was nothing unusual,” he said. “You know how people go.”
Lee’s mother, Judy Renfro, said on April 2 that her son suffered from “violent headaches.”
Steve talked with Port Angeles police about the coroner’s report. An autopsy found that his son died of hypothermia.
‘Needed answers’
“I needed answers,” Steve said. “It just didn’t jive to me.”
Police are awaiting the results of toxicology tests, expected in about three weeks, which would show if alcohol or drugs were in Renfro’s body. The tests also may reveal an approximate time of death.
There is no evidence of foul play, police said.
Steve said his son’s brother did not think anything was wrong when Lee did not return from his walk on March 28.
When Donald got up the next morning, he saw his brother’s bedroom door closed and thought Lee was sleeping, Steve said.
When Donald returned for lunch on March 29, there was no sign Lee had been there, and he called police to report his brother missing, Steve said.
Lee had left his cell phone on his brother’s coffee table, Steve said.
Steve and Gallagher said Lee ended up walking along the shoreline of the mill site.
Judy has said that her son would often scale the 4- to 6-foot fence at the site to get a better view of Port Angeles Harbor.
Lee was wearing long pants and a shirt, his father said.
The temperature never fell below freezing between the time he left for his walk and when his body was found, although the weather was cold and wet.
The low temperature on March 28 was 42 degrees, and precipitation totaled 0.02 inches.
The following day — a Monday — the low temperature was 42 degrees with 0.75 inches of rain, followed by a low of 35 on March 30 with 0.08 inches of precipitation and a low of 33 on March 31 with a trace of rain.
Steve came to Port Angeles on March 29, the night of the day his son was reported missing, and visited the mill site the following day, but could not see his son’s body from the fence.
The fence Lee climbed separates Rayonier from the Waterfront Trail. Three trail users saw what they thought was a body late in the afternoon of March 31 but weren’t sure.
Two state Department of Natural Resources employees who were working at nearby Ennis Creek trained their binoculars on the spot and discovered the body at about 6 p.m. that day.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.