A Castle Rock woman — wanted on an assault charge and detained after trying to escape — has pleaded guilty in Cowlitz County Superior Court to felonies and sentenced to roughly two years in prison.
Crystal Irene McQuilliams, 31, admitted to beating her boyfriend with a baseball bat, fleeing from police, and previously firing a gun at her ex-girlfriend’s car.
McQuilliams was sentenced last week to two years and four months in prison, and to serve 12 months of community custody following her prison term. She is required to undergo an anger management evaluation.
What happened?
Corrections officers were trying to locate McQuilliams on Jan. 17, according to a police report, because she had an outstanding warrant.
They tracked her to the Mount St Helens Motel, at 1340 Mt. St. Helens Way in Castle Rock, leaving the parking lot of a nearby restaurant in a silver Acura SUV.
The SUV’s driver drove through a stop sign before entering Interstate 5, so officers stopped the car, finding McQuilliams lying on the rear seat floorboards under some clothes.
After being placed in a patrol car, McQuilliams opened the door and fled, running about 150 yards and hiding under an overpass before being arrested again, the police report continues.
Before the January arrest, McQuilliams was already facing an assault charge, and sentenced for another one.
She sent her boyfriend to the hospital on June 9 after striking him several times with a wooden baseball bat at a home in the 400 block of 22nd Avenue in Longview because he told her that certain food in the fridge was his, a different police report states. He also suffered lacerations because he fell on a garbage can during the attack.
Before that, in January 2023, McQuilliams fired a loaded revolver into a car occupied by her then-girlfriend and a passenger in the 100 block of Stoneway Lane in Longview, and the bullet hit an occupied house. That police report states the same friend driving her in the silver Acura during her recent arrest, was also with her during the shooting.
McQuilliams was sentenced on Oct. 4, 2023, for the shooting to a mental health sentencing alternative program and 24 months of community custody.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify what the defendant pleaded guilty to.
Matt Esnayra covers public safety in Cowlitz County.
