Tommy Ragan, the man I wrote about in True Crime Case Histories - Volume 4 who was convicted of the 1977 murder of thirteen-year-old Bruce Kim in Centralia, Washington, died in custody on May 14, 2025. He was 81.

His death came at a particularly strange moment in the case's legal history. In April 2024, Ragan had filed a motion to vacate his conviction, citing a 2004 Washington State Supreme Court ruling that invalidated second-degree felony murder convictions based on assault as the predicate felony. Because Ragan's conviction rested on exactly that premise, a Lewis County Superior Court judge vacated his guilty plea in December 2024.

Rather than let the matter drop, the Lewis County Prosecutor's Office refiled charges in January 2025, this time charging him with first-degree aggravated murder — the original charge from 1977. His arraignment was scheduled for May 19, 2025. He died five days before it.

Ragan had remained in Washington state Department of Corrections custody throughout — he was serving a life sentence on an unrelated case — so he never walked free. But he did die without the murder conviction on his record, which is a deeply unsatisfying outcome for anyone who knows the full details of what he did to Bruce Kim. A legal technicality that had nothing to do with his guilt or innocence effectively wiped the slate clean on one of the most savage murders I've ever written about.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer addressed the outcome directly: "We are obviously disappointed that the defendant died without the conviction on his record, but are comforted by the fact that there is no doubt the atrocities were committed by the defendant."

It's cold comfort. Bruce Kim's family deserved a conviction that would outlast the man who killed him. Instead, the legal system — through no fault of the prosecutors who fought to refile charges — denied them even that.