Hiking Death Probed -- Lake Sammamish Drowning Reopens '81 Case

After learning that King County police are investigating the drowning of a woman who was on Lake Sammamish with her husband, the Skamania County sheriff has reopened an investigation into the death of a previous wife who was killed in a fall while hiking with the man in 1981.

Both cases are officially classified as accidental deaths.

Randy Roth, a 36-year-old mechanic from Woodinville, drew attention earlier this month after King County police raised questions about the death of Cynthia Roth, 34. She drowned while swimming with him on Lake Sammamish on July 23.

County police said yesterday they are stepping up efforts to find witnesses to the drowning.

Detective Sue Peters said fliers will be posted near Lake Sammamish this week, asking for people to come forward with information in the case.

George Cody, Randy Roth's attorney, said yesterday his client welcomes any new information in the King and Skamania county cases. But he said the fact that King County detectives are planning to circulate fliers suggests that they haven't received any information contradicting Roth's version of events.

Skamania County Sheriff Ray Blaisdell yesterday declined to comment on any new information he has on the death of Janis Roth but said that the King County case has given him more to go on than he had 10 years ago when he was the undersheriff who investigated the death.

"It's kind of unusual that two wives die with large insurance (policies) after being married to him less than a year," Blaisdell said. He said he has been in "constant contact" with King County detectives and is sharing information with them.

Janis and Randy Roth, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, had been married for eight months when they attempted in November 1981 to climb Beacon Rock in Skamania County.

According to court documents in a subsequent suit Randy Roth filed against the state in connection with the accident, the Roths were near the top of the 800-foot climb when they left the main trail to take a shortcut because Janis Roth was feeling cold.

Roth said his wife slipped on some pine needles and began sliding off an embankment. He tried to reach her, Roth said, but it was too late. She landed on a rock cliff about 300 feet below.

The incident was investigated as a suspicious death, Blaisdell said, but no charges were ever filed.

"It was one of those situations where there were only two people there," Blaisdell said. "There were no witnesses except him, and we just couldn't come up with enough probable cause to file charges."

King County police also have little to go in their investigation of Cynthia Roth's death last month.

Detectives first issued a public plea for help two weeks ago, when they called the drowning "suspicious" and asked to talk to anyone who may have seen, photographed or videotaped the Roths while they were in the water.

Roth told police that he and his wife paddled a six-person rubber raft from Idylwood Park in Redmond toward the middle of the lake, then got out to swim. According to Roth, his wife came down with leg cramps and drowned after the wake from a pleasure boat flipped the raft while she was trying to climb back aboard.

Police have conducted experiments on the lake to see if the accident could be duplicated under conditions that Roth described, Peters said. She declined to discuss the results.

Peters said she is also contacting television stations and newspaper photographers to see if they have footage or photos of the lake on July 23, which was one of the hottest days of the summer.

Cody said yesterday that a producer for Oprah Winfrey's talk show has been trying to contact Roth, but Cody said he doesn't think his client will go on the show.

"Randy's about as excited about that as a poke in the eye," he said.