In June 2023, Ronald Krier allegedly showed up at his then-wife’s work, told her she was going to die and made a slitting motion across his throat.
Pierce County prosecutors filed a felony harassment charge against Krier for that incident, but not until July 8, three days after authorities say he killed her in her Bonney Lake home.
Krier, 53, purportedly made the threats inside a Safeway on June 19, 2023. Bonney Lake police submitted a case for prosecutor review two weeks later, according to Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson Adam Faber. It took more than a year to file the felony harassment charge because of an accumulating workload in the prosecutor’s office, Faber said.
“There is a backlog for some out-of-custody cases, and we have beefed up staffing in the Domestic Violence & Human Trafficking unit to cut through this,” Faber said in an email.
Krier’s bail was set at $50,000 for the felony harassment charge, court records show. He also is being held in jail on $2 million bail on a first-degree murder charge, which also was filed July 8. A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf during an arraignment.
The cases will now play out in Pierce County Superior Court.
It’s the venue where Krier’s 53-year-old ex-wife, identified in court records as Lisha Krier, had sought legal intervention in recent years to distance herself from the man she described as abusive, according to records reviewed by The News Tribune. The couple, who married in 1989, had their divorce finalized just last month.
The records illustrate a woman doing what she could to protect herself and fearful that her former partner would do the very thing of which he now stands accused.
In five separate filings between 2020 and 2023, she documented being afraid for her life and wrote about Krier’s attempts and threats to take it. Two divorce petitions and three requests for domestic-violence protection orders laid out her reportedly increasingly dire situation. The last domestic-violence order she sought came the day after the alleged threats inside the grocery store, where she held a job in the bakery.
“He will kill me and has threatened to kill me multiple different ways,” she wrote in the petition.
At times, the system set up to protect victims works like it should, and abusers are held accountable, according to Craig Roberts, director of the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center, a Tacoma-based domestic-violence victim advocacy organization. In other cases, he said, it is uncertain what could be done to prevent the abuse.
“It’s sad that this person had to go through this trauma in her life that ultimately ended in her death, and nobody could do anything to help,” Roberts said.
Following the grocery-store incident, a year-long protection order against Ronald Krier was granted, requiring him not to harm or contact Lisha Krier and to stay away from her home. It expired two days before she was killed, court records show.
In filing the felony harassment charge, a prosecutor noted that law enforcement investigated allegations that Ronald Krier had violated the order multiple times between July 2023 and September by contacting Lisha Krier through text message and social media. The prosecutor’s office couldn’t prove the violations, and thus didn’t charge him for them, according to Faber.
‘She did all the right things’
Domestic-violence protection orders are an important tool because they can legally prevent an abuser from harming or contacting a victim, among other available restraints.
“But they aren’t a fix-all, and we see that so starkly in this situation,” said Elizabeth Montoya, spokesperson for the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Montoya told The News Tribune that it’s “devastating” when a person isn’t receiving the safety they deserve while trying to protect themselves.
“She did all the right things,” Montoya said of Lisha Krier.
Society as a whole needs to support survivors, according to Montoya, including by listening to those who say they’re afraid for their lives and following up with them in high-risk situations. Other systems beyond legal channels can offer help, she added.
Employers can enact policies that support an employee taking time off to address a domestic-violence situation. Schools can note in student accounts that a child isn’t to be picked up by an individual if that person has a protection order against them. Friends and family, who are often the first people a victim will turn to, can provide a non-judgmental ear or a safe place to sleep, or help a victim load up a car when leaving their situation.
It is hard to pinpoint what specifically any one victim can do to protect themselves, Montoya said, given that each individual’s circumstances are different and “it’s kind of out of that person’s control sometimes whether or not they’re going to experience violence.”
Seeking help, which is often difficult in and of itself, is a good starting point, she said. It’s also important, for use in potential criminal and civil court cases, to document instances of abuse and steps taken to protect oneself.
The coalition underscores that there are more than 80 advocacy programs in Washington state that offer free and confidential emergency support, shelter and legal assistance — most of which are available 24 hours a day. A victim doesn’t need to fret about making any major decisions upon contacting an advocate, such as leaving their abuser or filing a police report, Montoya said. An advocate is expected to simply offer support and not push someone seeking help in any particular direction.
Advocates also will reinforce the protection that an individual is getting through the court systems, according to Montoya. They could accompany a person to hearings, call and check up on them and perform other functions that legal systems might not otherwise have the capacity to do.
“I know it’s really scary and hard to reach out but there is support available and you’re not alone,” Montoya said.
Assaults, threats documented for years
Ronald and Lisha Krier were married 35 years ago in Las Vegas. They have three adult children: two daughters and a son. As late as July 2023, Ronald Krier was reportedly working for a plumbing company in Renton, according to a Pierce County Sheriff’s Department incident report into an alleged protection order violation against him.
The tumult in their relationship started as early as December 2011. Ronald Krier shot a couple of rifle rounds at Lisha Krier that didn’t hit her, wrestled her to the ground and struck her in the eye with the butt of the firearm during an altercation at their home, court records show.
He was sentenced to six months in jail for second-degree assault, credited with more than three and a half months for time served, and ordered to serve a year in alcohol-abuse treatment.
He also was found to have violated a protection order apparently in place at that time and separately given a suspended sentence for that violation with the requirement that he undergo evaluations for alcohol or drugs and not contact the victim. As a condition of the assault sentencing, he was not to contact his ex-wife for 10 years, court records show.
In a victim-impact statement filed through the court, Lisha Krier defended her then-husband as somebody who had acted outside of themselves under the influence of heavy drinking and the stress of financial problems related to a business. She asked the court multiple times that the no-contact order be dropped. It was terminated in October 2013. Ronald Krier successfully completed treatment in March 2014, according to court records.
Problems were publicly apparent again by October 2019 when the two started living in separate households, court records show. Over the next four years, Lisha Krier would seek help, as documented in an array of legal filings.
Within a week after living apart from each other, she filed for divorce but opted not to pursue an accompanying protection order. The case was dismissed after neither appeared at a hearing for the matter.
In August 2020, she sought a one-year protection order, saying that her then-husband struggled with alcoholism and threatened to kill her every other day: “(I)f he finds me he will choke me out and kill me with no mercy,” she wrote.
The court granted a temporary protection order but, when no one showed up to a hearing, the case was dismissed and the order expired after two weeks.
Lisha Krier filed a new request for protection, this time for over a year, in October 2022. Again, she noted that Ronald Krier threatened to kill her as well as their son and her mother. She also wrote that he was not permitted to possess firearms due to the 2011 assault; verbally abusive to her daily; and had put a knife to her throat, tried to choke her and vowed to burn her alive when the two were briefly living in Florida.
She documented in the petition that he was arrested for the incident in Florida, but she dropped charges because he was in bad health and she felt sorry for him.
“If I don’t get immediate help, I fear for my life,” she wrote.
After she didn’t appear at a hearing, the protection-order case was dismissed, allowing a temporary order to expire after two weeks without being extended.
In March 2023, Lisha Krier filed for divorce for a second time, requesting that Ronald Krier transfer the deed of their home to their son because they had verbally gifted the property to him. It had been agreed upon, she said, that she and their son would live there when Ronald Krier moved to Florida the year prior.
In the filing, she detailed how she had been twice convinced by her then-husband to join him in Florida due to his health issues.
The divorce petition requested that Ronald Krier, who had since returned to Washington, vacate the home by June 2023.
“My marriage is irretrievably broken due to years of emotional and physical abuse from Ron Krier,” Lisha Krier wrote. “He has tried to kill me several times and continues to threaten members of my family and myself with bodily harm and death.”
She dismissed the petition in July 2023 after she served new divorce papers in a separate case a month earlier, court records show.
In that final divorce filing, from June 2023, she requested protection and restraining orders against her then-husband, whom she noted had again convinced her to give their relationship another try after she filed the previous divorce petition. But the situation only grew worse: Ronald Krier had threatened to kill her with kitchen knives during an argument, she said.
“I truly believe that he will kill me if I stay with him,” she wrote.
A temporary restraining order was granted in June 2023 and extended until an August 2023 hearing. In a response to the divorce petition, filed in advance of the hearing, Ronald Krier disagreed with petition assertions about the home, debts and spousal support and the requested protection order, which he suggested was redundant since there was already one in place through July.
The details of the divorce are confidential, but court records show that a decree of dissolution was filed on June 10.
Cycles of abuse
Roughly 24% of women and 14% of men in the United States have been the victims of severe physical violence by a partner, affecting more than 12 million people annually , according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
It was a long, harrowing road that preceded Lisha Krier’s murder.
“No two cases are alike,” Roberts said, adding that the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center has clients who it will see once or twice and others who it has served for years.
He said it represented a “big step” for victims to file for a protection order in cases involving domestic violence, sending a signal to an abuser that they have lost control to the courts and to the filer. Domestic violence, which is centered on control, is also cyclical, he added.
It means that thoughts can play out in victims’ minds even after they have sought protection orders: How will they pay rent or feed their children? Can their abuser change?
Montoya also noted the many barriers to leaving an abusive relationship, which she said range from emotional to practical reasons. Victims might not want to leave a loved one, feel pressured to stay, be ashamed or hold concerns about their safety or the safety of others, particularly because ending a relationship presents the most dangerous time for a survivor. Victims are also often blamed for abuse they experience, she said.
Lisha Krier feared financial instability at times and acknowledged offering Ronald Krier multiple second chances, court records show.
Faber, the prosecuting attorney’s office spokesperson, told The News Tribune that Lisha Krier had not been supportive of prosecution in past incidents involving Ronald Krier but that she supported the felony-harassment charge. The deputy prosecuting attorney who filed it had spoken to her just days before she was killed, Faber said.
Ultimately, there needs to be more resources for domestic-violence victims, more safe places for them to go and expedited financial assistance, Roberts said.
The center maintains a program that teaches family and friends how to support their loved ones who are enduring abuse. The center educates supporters to not cast judgment but reassure victims that they are believed and not at fault; ask what assistance is needed; encourage victims to speak with a professional about a plan for their personal safety; and allow them to make their own decisions, free of pressure.
“I think we need to have a much more knowledgeable community” on domestic-violence issues, Roberts said, so that aid is more widely accessible.
He also thinks it is important to highlight a simple message: “Help is available.”
Resources for survivors and family and friends
Visit familyjusticecenter.us or call 253-798-4166 to contact the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center, whose website features a list of partner organizations that also provide services.
For a list of domestic-violence victim advocacy programs in the state, visit wscadv.org/washington-domestic-violence-programs . For national or regional hotlines, visit wscadv.org/get-help-now .
The Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s friends and family guide can be found here: wscadv.org/resources/friends-family-guide . A printable guide in English or Spanish is available here: wscadv.org/resources/printable-friends-family-guide .
Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 if you or someone you know is suffering abuse. Visit thehotline.org to chat or text with an advocate or more information.
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