Maple Falls man found guilty of kidnapping, torturing another man

A Maple Falls man was found guilty Wednesday of kidnapping and torturing a man he shackled to a ladder, beat with various objects and left for dead on Sumas Mountain in November 2016.

After a day of deliberation, a jury found Donald Lee Calvin, 62, guilty of first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping, three counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of second-degree taking a motor vehicle without permission. The jury also found Calvin guilty of special firearm enhancements and determined that he acted with deliberate cruelty to the victim.

Calvin was remanded into custody and taken to the Whatcom County Jail, where he will wait until he’s sentenced within the next 30 days. A date for Calvin’s sentencing has not been set yet.

Whatcom County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brandon Waldron said he’s strongly considering seeking an exceptional sentence above the standard range due to the evidence presented at trial.

“We’re pleased with the jury’s verdict. I do want to express appreciation for the work of the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. The detectives and deputies involved in this case put in a tremendous amount of work, and very thoroughly investigated the case,” Waldron said. “I don’t think we would have got the verdict had they not put in the work they did.”

Calvin’s public defense attorney Darrin Hall declined to comment.

According to court documents and trial testimony, around 10 a.m. on Nov. 30, 44-year-old Jason Jones went to the home of his former neighbor, Calvin, in the 8100 block of Balfour Valley Drive after getting into an argument with his girlfriend earlier that morning. Jones said he went into Calvin’s house and everything appeared normal until he saw a red dot on his chest, which Jones thought was from a Taser. The last thing Jones said he remembered was moving toward the door. He woke up with his hands and feet shackled to a ladder, lying on his side on a plastic sheet on the floor of Calvin’s house.

Jones said that over the next 13 hours, Calvin beat him with a baseball bat, a metal pipe, stomped on his hands and face and injected him several times with what Calvin told him was “pain medication,” all while demanding information about a missing briefcase. At one point, Jones said Calvin put a rifle to his head and pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t fire. Jones said he went in and out of consciousness during the ordeal.

“At one point in time when I was laying on the floor in his house and he had me handcuffed to the ladder, I really didn’t think I was going to get loose at all. It took me a minute to comprehend what was really going on. I realized I couldn’t get out of them. The way he was acting, he was just not right,” Jones said during his testimony at trial. “It definitely made me feel like I might die.”

Around 11 p.m., Jones said he came to, and Calvin was putting him in the passenger seat of his car. Jones said Calvin told him they were going to the hospital, but soon realized they were on a logging road heading up Sumas Mountain. Calvin stopped the car, Jones fled and fell down a nearby embankment where he hid until Calvin left.

“I just felt like I had to get out of there. I did not think anything good was going to happen because up to this point it wasn’t,” Jones said during his testimony.

Jones said he then walked about a mile to a nearby friend’s house, who took him to the Kendall Fire Station. Jones was later taken to St. Joseph hospital, and transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle due to the extent of his injuries.

Jones suffered several lacerations to his head, a large laceration on his wrist and hand that exposed bone, broken wrists, a skull fracture, an orbital fracture and kidney problems. Jones said the tendons in his hand were cut, making him unable to flatten it, which causes him problems. He also said he has scars on the front and back of his head that are still visible.

When detectives with the sheriff’s office executed a search warrant at Calvin’s residence, they found two firearms, four Tasers, blood spatter on the walls, living room carpet and plastic sheet, a bloody rope and clothing in the washing machine, bloody leg and wrist irons, and a baseball bat, metal pipe and ladder all with blood matching that of Jones’ on them. Calvin was a convicted felon at the time and was prohibited from having firearms.

Detectives also found Jones’ car about 30 feet down the embankment where Jones said he fled from Calvin.

As detectives were executing the search warrant, Calvin called the sheriff’s office from the Seattle Amtrak station to report that someone was breaking into his home. Deputies heard someone on the other end of the line that was asking Calvin to hang up because they had to ask him some questions. It was determined that Calvin was about to be questioned due to suspicious activity at the train station. Calvin was arrested without incident and later transferred to the Whatcom County Jail.

At the time of his arrest on Dec. 1, 2016, Calvin had a cooler that contained a 9mm pistol.