Probe of Spokane Valley death includes homicide
Man found dead had drug history
A man’s death in a Spokane Valley motor home is being investigated as a possible homicide by Spokane County sheriff’s detectives.
A friend of the man stopped by 58-year-old Timothy M. Walsh’s motor home early Saturday morning near 3800 N. Edgerton Road and knocked on the door, but nobody answered. The lights were on, he told detectives.
Later that night, the friend, identified as Michael Guerdette in court records, came back and found garbage outside the trailer; inside he found Walsh with his pants down, dead on the bed.
Walsh was a squatter in the trailer home and kept his prized motorcycle in a shed nearby, Guerdette told detectives. Walsh did not know the property owner, Guerdette said.
The shed’s door was open and Guerdette found a set of keys in the motorcycle’s ignition that would also unlock the trailer.
Guerdette left the trailer to tell his girlfriend what he saw. He came back shortly afterward and called authorities using Walsh’s cellphone.
Walsh used methamphetamine at the trailer and had guests there frequently, Guerdette said.
Walsh was a heavy drug user, according to his brother, Robert Walsh, who told detectives his brother was “too smart to overdose.”
Timothy Walsh had several drug-possession convictions, including for meth and marijuana, according to court records.
The property is part of the estate of a Spokane Valley woman who died in January, according to the Spokane County Assessor’s Office website.