Ronald Lewis: Man held for ramming car into supermarket claims he was being chased by satanic cult
EVERETT, WASHINTON STATE: Ronald Lewis, an ex-Microsoft employee, who allegedly claimed to be being sought by a violent satanic cult and crashed his car into a busy supermarket in Washington State on Friday, December 23, 2022, is now in jail. Lewis, 57, allegedly drenched himself in gasoline after ramming his car into the front of the Fred Meyer store in Everett, 50 miles north of Seattle.
When authorities arrived, Lewis sat in his car as they attempted to negotiate his surrender and at this point, his car started to burn. Lewis somehow managed to escape from the car with relatively minor wounds. He was carrying a propane can along with a couple of gas cans when the incident occurred. The word "Satanic Panic" was scrawled on Lewis' car at least twice, however, authorities haven't made any public statements about his motivations. Lewis claimed in a number of Facebook posts in the weeks prior to the incident that a violent satanic cult was threatening his life. There were no other recorded injuries, and the entire incident lasted about an hour. A representative for Fred Meyer estimated the incident's damage at $50,000.
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Lewis was held on a $250,000 bond when he appeared in Everett District Court on Tuesday, December 27. He has been accused of malicious mischief and arson. The judge in the case also required Lewis to undergo a mental examination before being considered for release, according to My Everett News.
Lewis reportedly admitted to authorities that he was attempting to attract the FBI's attention in order to speak with them about "satanic stalking he believed he was experiencing." The phrase "Satanic Panic" is frequently linked to the tens of thousands of unfounded reports of ritual abuse and cult activities that took place in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.
Lewis had served as a technologist for Microsoft, according to his Facebook page. Typically, technologists develop the hardware required by software engineers' designs. In one article, Lewis described how he saw a "Satan-worshipping band" at a concert while beta-testing an early digital camera.
"A Satanic Devil Worship Cult attempted to abduct and kill me last night as I was sleeping in my car!! This is real. Satanic cults do exist and notoriously evil humiliation pain suffering assault Torture mutilation (of humans) and rituals, you name it, they do it," Lewis wrote on Facebook on December 12.
Lewis further claimed that the cult was stalking him and that he was hiding out in a nearby church's parking lot. On December 14, Lewis revealed that he once engaged in an armed confrontation with police at the Seattle Sheraton hotel after his girlfriend warned authorities he was going to shoot her in his final public post before the December 23 incident.
Lewis stated that it was "a lie and proved to be a lie," and claimed that "hundreds, if not thousands," of Microsoft workers are followers of a national cult that practices Satanism. "They are extremely dangerous and will not stop," he wrote.
Lewis claimed that he was poisoned and forced into his car through the ventilation system after being pursued by cult members for several hours. In his final statement, he claimed that his girlfriend, whom he pulled a gun on, is a part of the cult.
Tyler Stumpf, the manager of the aforementioned Fred Meyer store reportedly told the city council earlier this month that he needed additional assistance from the police to keep his store safe. Stumpf claimed that drug users frequently used his restroom to consume drugs outside of his store, which had turned into an open-air drug market. He claimed that despite local police being called, they failed to arrive at the scene.