Pierce County mayor’s son-in-law: ‘We were just driving like jackasses’ in crash
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- Steilacoom Mayor Dick Muri’s son-in-law faces charges for a serious boat crash last summer.
- Jarod Kelpman is accused of operating a vessel recklessly and under the influence.
- Body-camera footage shows the aftermath of the crash that severely injured Muri’s grandson.
A Steilacoom public safety officer investigating a boating crash near Chambers Bay walked along railroad tracks toward an approaching man in the distance as ambulance sirens rang in the background.
Jarod Kelpman, 50, and his teenage son had been in a speeding motor boat that had just struck a piling in front of the railroad bridge that crosses the entrance into the bay, according to court documents. A shaken Kelpman, wearing only shorts and covered in blood, expressed concern for the boy.
“I just want to make sure my son’s OK,” Kelpman said when he reached the officer and then leaned over with his hands above his knees. “Oh, my God. I can’t lose my son.”
The officer, Robert Silivelio with the Steilacoom Department of Public Safety, noted Kelpman’s visible injuries, which court records show included severe lacerations to his head and leg. As Kelpman repeatedly pleaded for his son’s wellbeing, Silivelio assured him that the boy, then 14, was breathing.
“Oh, my God. I’m such a (expletive) idiot,” Kelpman said, before responding to Silivelio’s question asking what happened. “We were just driving like jackasses.”
The interaction between the two, from July 20, 2024, was captured on Silivelio’s body-camera footage, which The News Tribune obtained in one of three public records requests to agencies whose officers responded to the scene. Video from the Lakewood Police Department shows authorities attending to the secured boat following the crash.
Kelpman, the son-in-law of Steilacoom Mayor Dick Muri, is facing three criminal charges for the crash that seriously injured Kelpman’s son, who is Muri’s grandson.
Kelpman has pleaded not guilty to watercraft assault, a Class B felony, and misdemeanor charges of operating a vessel under the influence of intoxicants and operating a vessel in a reckless manner, court records show. He was arraigned in July and released from custody on personal recognizance without needing to post bail, according to court records. His case is scheduled for trial in November.
Attorney Jared Ausserer, who is representing Kelpman, declined to comment on his client’s statements to Silivelio as heard in the body-camera recording, citing the ongoing criminal proceedings.
“This is a tragic case that has nothing to do with his father-in-law,” Ausserer said in an email Wednesday.
Prosecutors allege that Kelpman had been drinking and driving too fast when he wrecked the boat shortly after 7 p.m. near 2709 Chambers Creek Road in Steilacoom. An initial blood-draw test at a hospital following the crash allegedly showed Kelpman’s blood-alcohol level (BAC), based on two different types of analyses, was a 0.16 and 0.20 — both twice or more the legal limit for motorists. At least two alcoholic beverage cans were open and empty among several alcohol cans strewn about inside the vessel, charging papers said.
According to the papers, Kelpman told medical personnel that after he struck a rocky shoreline trying to dock the boat, he was thrown onto the rocks but able to get out of the water and onto the shore next to the train tracks.
Kelpman wasn’t charged until nearly a year after the crash. Adam Faber, a spokesperson for the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said that attorneys were waiting for toxicology results from the Washington State Patrol before making a final charging decision. Those results arrived in June, showing a BAC of 0.13, according to charging papers. The case was filed on July 2 following a review from a prosecutor in the PAO’s Complex Crimes Unit, Faber said.
The toxicology result stemmed from a second blood sample, which was obtained under a warrant and also drawn the same day as the crash, according to Faber. It was based on the same type of analysis that had earlier produced a 0.16 BAC but reflected the body metabolizing alcohol over time, he said, when asked to explain the discrepancy in reported levels.
In an interview the day after the case was filed, Muri expressed surprise over the charges, calling it “very tough” on the family and saying he hoped the case would be fair. Since the wreck, Kelpman had been mentally distraught and a constant caretaker for his son, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, according to Muri. On Thursday, Muri said the boy was showing some mobility, beginning to eat and talk and attending high school a few days a week.
“He is truly, truly making progress,” Muri said, noting the path toward recovery will be long.
Muri previously described showing up to the crash scene upon learning of the incident but said he hadn’t immediately known of his family’s involvement. While there, he was in contact with Pierce County Sheriff’s Office deputy Greg McClendon, who serves on the University Place Police Department, according to McClendon’s police report. University Place contracts with the Sheriff’s Office for services.
There is no body-camera footage for most of McClendon’s response to the incident, including his interaction with Muri, according to the police report and a public records officer with the Sheriff’s Office. The News Tribune requested footage from the Sheriff’s Office specific to McClendon’s interactions with Muri and Kelpman after the crash.
Believing it likely he’d have to participate in a water rescue, based on information about the call at the time, McClendon had emptied his pockets, removed his body armor that carries the camera, disabled the camera and left it behind on his vest in his patrol car, the report said. Ultimately, McClendon and others took a vessel to the wrecked boat, on which the teenage victim was being rendered aid by a Steilacoom officer, before the boy was transferred to a third boat and taken ashore with McClendon and others, according to the report.
McClendon wrote that he saw Muri, whom he knew, at a dock moments after the mayor’s grandson was loaded into an ambulance. McClendon, who also said he knew Kelpman and Kelpman’s son, informed Muri that his family members were involved in the crash and offered to give Muri a ride to a local hospital, according to the report. McClendon remained at the hospital “as a friend,” told his patrol sergeant he was clocking out and later drove Muri home, the report said.
McClendon said he didn’t get involved in the incident’s investigation.
As Silivelio investigated the crash, his body-camera footage picked up a brief conversation with McClendon, who is seen and heard giving the Steilacoom officer a heads up that the involved parties were Muri’s family members.
“Just so you know, the adult is the son-in-law of the mayor and then the kid is his grandson,” McClendon said. “I’m sure in your notifications, the mayor’s probably involved at some point, but let the chief know.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 5:15 AM.
